granted the initiative the title ‘Cultural Ambassador of Flanders 1997’ and commissioned the further expansion of the concept.

On 1st April 1998, the Flanders Fashion Institute opened an office in Antwerp. It is there that it started in earnest on the realisation of its objectives.

The aims of the FFI are:

to promote international fashion
to provide active support to the younger generation of fashion designers and the fashion network;
to organise interesting projects and exhibitions;
to conduct scientific research;
to involve the economic sector in the fashion scene;
to conserve and catalogue fashion;
to offer postgraduate training
to revalue underestimated crafts such as embroidery, cutting and draping, shoemaking, glove-making and millinery, professions which are inextricable bound up with fashion.

Its efforts resulted in the realisation of the ModeNatie a unique project that combined a fashion school, a museum, a library with reading room, an archive department, a forum and an institute all under one roof and supported by the public and the private sector (FORTIS Bank). This building has become the platform for students and designers and attracts fashion specialists and tourists alike, as a HOME for the international fashion scene.

Events, Publications and a Magazine, a Forum for workshops, lectures and exhibitions, a Fashion Fund designed to coach young designers and support them, and give due attention to the profession and professional trades that are threatened with extinction; these are the instruments and tools used by the Flanders Fashion Institute to disseminate the concept of an authentic fashion culture.