Brussels: It’s in the (Shopping) Bag

February 19, 2010

By Becca Hensley

Like a tapestry coat that opens to reveal a startling silk scarlet lining, Brussels reigns as a world fashion capital. Though it’s been revered for centuries for its lace, cloth, and tapestry workshops, the city currently triumphs as a hot bed of contemporary fashion and design. So, though I’ll nibble a Belgian waffle or two and sip some strong, amber beer for sustenance, my focus on this trip is a fashion foray of the frenzied kind.

After a traditional lunch of moules (mussels cooked in white wine and onions and served in a copper tureen) in a café off the Grand Place, my husband and I stumble over cobblestone streets to the Dansaert District, a gentrified area now considered the nerve center of creative design. Nestled within a panoply of winding streets, we find both the studios of well known designers and tiny, avante garde boutiques, the lair of stylists, jewelers, milliners and more, offering limited quantities of cashmere, silk, and linen artistry.

This was once the site of a 10^th century fortified castle, built on a river heavily involved in centuries of textile trade. These days, Belgian designers like Nicolas Woit, Azniv Afsar, and Marina Yee have studios here, Still, I buzz pass them, en route to an interview with top-dog designer Olivier Strelli, perhaps the father of Belgian design.

His studio has a palpable brilliance — almost Fauvist in feel, color dominates. Swatches of cloth, shelves of scarves, splotches of paint fill the room. “Color is like music,” Strelli tells me. “If you find the right tone, you can mix anything together and it will harmonize.” Even when he uses white, he uses eight different hues of it, each with evocative names like chalk, vanilla, shell, all meant to match up with a tomato red or elephant gray part of an ensemble.

For my husband’s benefit, I ask him what fashion can do for men. “Seduction,” he says, “in all aspects of their lives. Fashion gives men the energy and vitamins, a good luck charm if you will.” I can’t leave without purchasing my own good luck charm from Strelli — a woolen scarf in mottled shades of pink and green, which I wrap around my neck Belgian style.

Next, we ramble to the nearby Saint Jacques District, home to the Manniken-Pis. Inhabited in the 12^th century by the city’s craftsmen, shops here now range from old bookstores to sellers of quirky cooking objects. Designers showing here are trendier, cooler and cutting edge.

Here’s where we find our hotel, the Royal Windsor, which offers ten corner suites, each designed by a Belgian fashion maven. The alchemist, Kaat Tilley, a designer known for her dreamy, romantic clothing, conceived our room much of it based on historical Flemish art and culture. Our pad is awash in creamy white, with candles atop the four-poster bed and an abundance of wavy, princess-like furniture. Overlooking the Grand Place from a suite like this, we feel like royalty.

We head across the square to The Galeries Royales Saint Hubert District, a covered passageway, roofed in glass, stung with an Italian Renaissance architectural influence. The motto in this area (“Omnibus Omnia” or “everything for everyone”) has remained the same for centuries. This grandest of districts, built for strolling, offers furniture shops, leather stores, and designers like Kaat Tilley and Mer du Nord.

Photos courtesy of Visit Belgium

It takes us a few days to hike the fashion trail of this town. But eventually we peruse the Sablon-Marolles District, an antique lovers paradise; The Quartier Avenue Louise-Boulevard de Waterloo, Brussels’ answer to the Champs Elysees or New York’s Fifth Avenue; and the Rue du Bailli-Place du Chatelain-Place Brugman District, an Art Deco-Art Nouveau influenced area with a Wednesday afternoon outdoor market. We tread through the Rue-de Namur-Matonge-Saintt-Boniface-Flagey District, an area near the Mont des Arts, characterized by its street couture ambiance, and finally, make it to the European-District-Cinquantenaire, home to the European Union and the leafy green grand park that breaks up the architectural marvel of the city with a vast patch of nature.

Having filled enough shopping bags to warrant the purchase of a new suitcase, I allow my husband his adventure with Belgian gastronomy. He sips Trappist beer made by monks and Kriek, a local beer made with bitter cherries and framboise beer, each served in a special glass designed just for that beer. We toast, agreeing that even the beer in Brussels makes a fashion statement.

One good book: Brussels Style (Icons)

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