After 22 Years in the Business, An Vandevorst and Filip Arickx Decide to “Stop in Beauty”
It might be Valentine’s Day, but my heart broke a little when I heard that An Vandevorst and Filip Arickx had decided to close their business after 22 years.
Now long married, the pair met on their first day at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and shared a passion for collecting memorabilia from the Red Cross, the symbol that became their logo. Their work was an exploration of the sacred and profane. They mixed riding references with lingerie and were inspired as much by nuns as bikers. They designed instinctually, following their gut feelings, and as independents, had a certain freedom and flexibility to do so.
“At the end of the day, we started [with] the two of us,” says Vandevorst. “It was always An and Filip and we are two human beings and that’s how we like to continue in everything that we do, to act as humans and not like a brand, and that’s also what made the decision easier.”
The joy they found in their work was in storytelling. “We’re known for our stories in every way—in images, in shows, in whatever,” notes Arickx. Content creation is a different beast than narrative, however, and the two increasingly found the focus of the industry to be on product and product placement. “It is all about everything around the product, and not anymore like how the product is made or what the inspiration is or how we came up with the idea,” notes Vandevorst. But inspiration and ideas were what gave purpose, value, and meaning to fashion for this duo. Rather than compromise, the two decided to stop.
