Become acquainted with the beautiful work of Christian Wijnants: five things you need to know about the Belgian designer and our latest addition to the Dilettante lineup.
1. Christian’s graduate collection won the Dries Van Noten Award for best collection in 2000.
Christian then began working at Dries Van Noten after graduating from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. “It was very interesting as a young graduate to see how creative you can be but yet to make desirable and wearable clothes,” Christian says.
2. All prints are developed by hand in house.
The team experiments with collage, various painting techniques and drawings. Designing the prints for a collection usually takes between 4-6 weeks. It begins with around 200 designs and is eventually narrowed down to around 12.
Each print is then sampled on real fabrics in order to decide what works.
4. Christian envisions the designs being worn by many different types of women.
“I think it is very challenging to make clothes that suit and fit women from different horizons” he says of his designs.
He immediately connected to the process and loved the idea of creating his own fabric from just a simple thread. This love of creating his own fabric has stayed with the designer as he now focuses on creating his own prints, silk fabrics and knits for his namesake brand.