The CWG (Costume Working Group) met in Antwerp in early March for a symposium on " Costumes and Fashion: Where We Meet ."   Fashion designers Kaat Tilley and Anita Evenepoel participated as did Rien Bekkers,a costume designer from Amsterdam, and Rita Geerts, the costume designer for soap opera "Thuis."

Bekkers work was on exhibit and showed his enormous theatricality, chic and inventiveness.   His designs had the couture finish of high fashion, with outrageous details such as donut ruffs made entirely of buttons.

Rein Bekker's Sketch of Gertrude from "Hamlet"

(click here for more work from Rein Bekker)

Rien Bekkers Buttoned Armor Bodies from Richard III

Kaat Tilley is a Belgian fashion designer who gets her inspiration from visiting other cultures for a month at a time while creating each new season's line of fashion. She says she finds the soul of every other woman in each woman from a new culture that she meets. She is known for her layering of sheer fabrics and combinations of new textures created with a fabric manufacturer in Italy.

(click here for more Kaat Tilley images)

Evenepoel comes from a mathematical background and her work is entirely about cut and structure. She started off working in rubber and now works also with industrial fabrics. The three provided a terrific basis for a comparison of styles, while each a consummate artist in his or her own right, their approach to the creation of three dimensional garments could not be more different.

(click here for more Anita Evenpoel images)

Rita Geerts is a Belgian costume designer who moved from theatre to television ten years ago to design cosutmes for a new soap opera titled "Thuis," that means "home" in Flemish.  It is filmed in the historic college of Leuven, whose town hall is see in the photo to the left.  Click on the town hall image to see photos of her working space.  Thuis became a huge hit and has been the most popular soap opera in Belgium ever since.  She took us for a tour of her studio wardrobe and on the set of the production.  She talked about the requirements for designing a huge TV soap production with a huge cast.  She creates a wardrobe for each character to use throughout the season and then sets up combinations of clothes to create different outfits for each season of the year.   

(click here for more Rita Geerts images)

We were hosted by Jerome Maeckelbergh and his wife Christa in their 17th century home in a quiet cul de sac in downtown Antwerp, near to the Fashion District.

There were representatives from:

Belgium: Rita Geerts, Pascaline Van Heddegem, Chris van Goethem (Scenofest)

Canada: Marcia Scott

Denmark: Lisse Klitten

Israel: Tali Itzahki

Netherlands: Henk van der Geest (Sound Working Group)

Netherlands: Tina Mathulessy

Slovenia: Marija Gorjanc

Sweden: Sunniva Thelestam

Turkey: Canan Goknil

United Kingdom: Hilary Baxter

USA: Alexandra Bonds, Gweneth West, Loyce Arthur,

Laura Crow - Head

Regrets:

Korea: In-Suk Suh

Czech Republic: Simona Rybakova

Cuba: Maria Luisa Bernal Figueredo, José Antonio Prades Hung.

Bulgaria: Marina Raytchinova

Finland: Reija Hirvikoski

Hong Kong: Shybil Yuen Yuk Ying.

Japan: Kazue Hatano.

Hungary: Erzsebeth Ek.

Philippines: Rolando Meriales de Leon, Joy Rago.

Russia: Inna Mizroyan.

Serbia and Montenegro: Miodrag Tabacki.

United Kingdom: Megan Baker. Donatella Barbieri

USA: Marianne Custer, Benny Gomes, Susan Tsu, Nicolae Ularu.

Symposium Presenters:

• Tali Itzhaki , Israel :“Ways of Unseeing: Fashion as Political Theatre”

• Laura Crow , USA :“Fashion from Found Objects / Prague 2003”

• Gweneth West , USA and Rita Geerts, Belgium :“Costume Designers and Fashion Designers:Rien Bekkers, Kaat Tilley & Anita Evenepoel”

• Alexandra Bonds, USA :“ Peking Opera Costumes: Research and the Designer”

• Sunniva Thelestam , Sweden :“Fashination: Fashion as Art”