Queen Mathilde visits the fashion museum and school in Antwerp – Royal Central

On Friday, Queen Mathilde of Belgium traveled to Antwerp to visit the Fashion Museum.

Upon arrival, His Holiness attended a roundtable discussion on the fashion industry and the impact of global shutdowns on it.

With such a dangerous gathering of people, textile production slowed, and supply chains were significantly delayed. Moreover, the fashion sector is one of the most affected by the massive supply delays caused by the six-day closure of the Suez Canal in March 2021 after a container ship, Ever Given, stalled following an accident caused by a combination of weather conditions and possible human error. .

At the end of the discussion, Queen Mathilde visits one of the museum’s permanent exhibits. The show focuses on archival pieces from museum collections, as well as showcases the Belgian avant-garde on the bias of silhouettes (in the fashion industry, bias is a diagonal cut of fabric).

To conclude his visit, His Holiness was offered a tour of the newly renovated library, where he met with students and sat among them to take part in practical lessons on fashion, clothing and textiles.

The museum has recently undergone a major renovation project which, among other things, has added about 800 square meters of open space to the public for their permanent exhibition.

MoMu’s goal is to stimulate curiosity in the industry and make it more accessible because, as they state on their website, Fashion is more than just clothes and more than just fashion. It is a prism to see the world from a different angle. One of the roles of contemporary fashion museums is to push the meaning of the term fashion and move beyond the narrative of the canonization of fashion history..

Queen Mathilde has always been one of the most influential advocates of Belgian fashion. She has chosen Belgian designers for almost every major event, at home or abroad, with her favorite being Natan. Her designer, Edouard Vermeulen, has been tasked with designing outfits for her for decades now, including her wedding gown, almost all of her National Day outfits, and most of the outfits she wears for tours and overseas visits.