Belgian designers play with textiles in a new exhibition

As part of the seventh annual New York Textile Month, Belgium Is Design is ready to launch a exhibition that features textiles, furniture and interiors entitled "The gift to be simple".

Organized by Lidewij Edelkoort and Philip Fimmano, the show, as its name suggests, magnifies simplicity as well as authenticity and shows how Belgian textile design is reinvented. Running Sunday through October 10 on Wooster Street in New York's SoHo neighborhood, the exhibition features the work of Natalia Brilli, Emma Cogné, Vanessa Colignon of Design for Resilience, Laure Kasiers, Charlotte Lancelot, Geneviève Levivier, Pascale Risbourg, Alexia de Ville and Celine Vahsen.

This new generation of designers is eager to experiment through their research and approaches to materials. In Belgium, initiatives are underway at Centexbel, the Belgian center for textile research, to explore circular recycling of textiles on an industrial scale. And at Tex Lab Liège, the ambition is to be a place of creation and emulation for textile designers and professionals, both for textile design and for clothing. Belgium is also known for having top fashion and textile departments at the university level. The well-known group of fashion designers, colloquially referred to as the Antwerp Six (Walter Van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs and Marina Yee), are former students of the Royal Academy of fine arts of Antwerp.

"The strength of Belgian textiles comes from its educational system, which leads us not only to creators of amazing fashion but also amazing textile dancers. This extends to interiors. Everyone always asks me: "What is the definition of Belgian design and simplicity? It also comes from their openness and down-to-earth -land, which the exhibition also embodies. It comes from their landscape, their industries, the mills, the flax fields – it's all there in their history and their DNA," Fimmano said. "We tried to illustrate that Belgian textiles are much more than linen. There is also this creativity. You see it so easily in fashion. But I think a lot of people outside of Europe may not realize how much the rest of the design world is creative there."

The clean aesthetic of the New York exhibit was "a very post-pandemic choice that aimed not to show anything too lavish or too expensive," said Fimmano. Shaker's song "Tis A Gift to Be Simple" (also known as "Simple Gifts") was inspirational because the he exhibition features rugs, bedding and linens that showcase natural fibers - wool, linen, cotton and paper - and soothing colors, he says. "By accident, we ended up choosing nine female designers, this which was a good point. This perhaps indicates that for this idea of ​​simplicity or connection to time and authenticity, the women designers in Belgium were more in tune with what we were looking for.”

Many of their designs have a calming effect, and despite their minimal color, they have stimulating effects on the plane of the texture. One example is the natural fiber rug resembling Cogné grass which required a traditional braiding technique that a Portuguese craftswoman assisted to weave a dense and strong weft.

As to why simplicity still resonates with people as the pandemic appears to be subsiding, Fimmano has said: "Even if we talk about fashion, there have been these two reactions both during and after the pandemic. ...