INTERNATIONAL
In the beginning of the eighties, the fashion world and the international media started to get interested in Antwerp fashion designers. From then on, the fashion department of the Royal Academy shared in this international interest, not in the least because of the continuous quality of the collections designed by some of the now aforementioned famous ex-students and a new generation of designers as Wim Neels, Véronique Branquinho, A.F.Vandevorst, Jurgi Persoons, Stephan Schneider, Angelo Figus, Bernhard Willhelm, Anke Loh, Christophe Charon, Bruno Pieters, Tim Van Steenbergen, Marjolein Van den Heuvel and Haider Ackerman amongst many others.

FASHION
The fashion department of the Antwerp Academy sees fashion in the broadest sense of the word, as a form of expression of the emotions of our times. Clothing reflects society or, adversely, questions it. Fashion people are not a self-absorbed clique, but committed people who question prevailing concepts of ethics and aesthetics and take a stand for or against aggression, rejection, denial, helplessness. In fashion, there is a freedom of expression which can at times be shocking, alarming, astounding or tempting.

The training provided by the fashion department stimulates innovation. The impulse to re-create, to open up new horizons and to overthrow existing concepts is essential and characteristic of our visual culture. Every fashion designer is influenced by this rhythm to a greater or lesser extent. This variety of personal visions and angles keeps fashion alive and fascinating.
Above all, this training is aimed, at encouraging the students to create and to explore innovative forms, new colour combinations and original treatments of materials. Our approach is focused on experimentation, improvisation and formal innovation. The goal is that the students ultimately achieve an appealing synthesis of all these aspects, on the basis of the professional skills they have acquired.

By nature, a designer has a limitless interest in the unknown and the new. This is a tendency which we try to stimulate in our students. We aim at training designers who combine their natural and stimulated creativity with a virtuosity in different disciplines and with excellent professional skills as well as the required perseverance.

PROFILE
Fashion designers design clothes for a manufacturer or for a brand name, but can also create their own collections. The great difference between the Academy and similar study courses is in the creative approach. Fashion designers who are trained at an academy and who studied four years with painters, sculptors, graphic designers, and students of other courses, live in a creative artistic atmosphere that leaves a mark on their personality. Students are expected to be very good draughtsmen. The study from live model in postures and movements is essential. Students must also show a high degree of originality in their designs. Through form studies, pattern studies, research and graphic work, they have to be able to make their own creations.

MASTER DEGREE
Since 1996 the Academy was subsumed under the Hogeschool Antwerpen (the newly-established umbrella institute which groups institutes of higher education in Antwerp). The diploma issued by this department is now a Master of Visual Arts.
The enrolment fee amounts to 550 Euro, plus a supplementary 125 Euro to cover atelier- and general expenses. Students can choose when to sit for the obligatory entrance exam, which is held once in July and once in September. The annual curriculum covers at least 30 weeks. All students are obliged to take theoretical subjects in Dutch.