The belgian duo A.F. Vandevorst, made by An Vandevorst and Philip Arickx, sees fashion as a way of communicating the inner processing of the mind.
The designers, respectively wife and husband, met each other in 1987 at the Royal Academy of Antwerp. After graduating, Vandevorst became the assistant of Dries Van Noten. At the same time, Arickx, who had worked as a teenager for three years for Dirk Bikkembergs, left the Academy and finished the military service, then he worked as a freelance stylist and designer. Together, they created their brand in 1997 and presented their first collection for the fall/winter 1998 in Paris.
The signature of the A.F. Vandevorst, the attention from the specialized press and the insiders was soon gained; in fact, after the second collection, during the Paris Fashion Week, they received the "Vénus de la Mode Award for Le Futur Grand Créateur", a prestigious award for young people.
For the spring/summer and fall/winter 2000, the couple were invited to draw the Ruffo Research collection, an opportunity that this italian leather company offers periodically to young designers.
The pieces of A.F. Vandevorst, convey a disfigured baldness and a kind of femininity that evokes a sexy intellectual. There are often references to traditional clothes, reworked and finished until they fall slightly to the left side. Their symbol is a red ambulance-style cross.
For collection themes, they often look at the unexpected, as when for the fall/winter 2003, they found inspiration in honey bees. Having no fixed colors, A.F. Vandevorst, run from the dull ones to the lively ones.
Recently, the brand has opened up to the footwear, accessories and lingerie sectors, continuing to present its collections in Paris.
