Walter Van Beirendonck’s SS24 Collection at Paris Fashion Week

We arrived outside what appeared to be an abandoned building in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, where attendees spilled onto the sidewalk, donning head-to-toe outfits in the iconic colours, graphics, and headwear of Walter Van Beirendonck. Stepping into the show space, we found ourselves in a 100-meter-long brutalist concrete chamber. The seating benches were adorned with descriptions reminiscent of the Belgian designer's typical cryptic prose, capital letters and bold sentences read: ‘Where are the machines taking us? WARNING! PAY ATTENTION... WELCOME TO DAWLEETOO XXX WALTER’.

As the first few looks paraded down to POLTERGEIST’s live pulsating industrial techno beats, it became evident that Walter was referencing the concerns of AI machines surpassing human intelligence, displacing professions, and the potential misuse of technologies like Chat GPT. In his distinctive way, the designer presented us with a world where AI machines and humans could coexist. The subsequent runway looks integrated transparent organza hazmat suits, bulletproof-like vests featuring graphical prints, black and navy suits with oversized football shoulders, alien alphabet prints, and a kink suit printed like a crash test dummy. Each look was accessorised with tooth-printed oxfords that paid homage to Ziggy Stardust, with red lightning bolts adorning the sides. For the finale, models were covered in plastic body-bags, graphically spray painted with skeletons and marked with a letter on their backs - spelling out the phrase ‘STOP TERRORISING THIS WORLD’.

A few days after the show, I sat down with Walter over coffee. He brought his scrapbook, filled with sketches, pasted pictures, and hand-drawn hieroglyphs, eager to discuss his process, inspiration and messages behind the Spring Summer 2024 collection.

“It all began with Dawleetoo, the lost city,” Walter shared. “When I stumbled upon those images, they initially seemed so real. However, I soon realised that they were all computer-generated. I then became fascinated by the abundance of AI-generated images portraying Dawleetoo on the internet. I began distinguishing between what was real and what was fake. I worry that future generations, particularly young people, might struggle to differentiate between reality and falsehood in this world. We are constantly grappling with the boundaries of reality, making it increasingly challenging to discern what is real and what is surreal. These images from Dawleetoo sparked the idea of elongated shapes, evoking an otherworldly feeling. The entire collection revolves around this concept, with extra-long pieces designed accordingly. The dress, for instance, features triple length, and the orange undershorts are connected to the transparent dress. This interconnected system creates a very flexible and easily wearable collection for both men and women.”

As Van Beirendonck continued flipping through his inspiration book, the motifs in the collection became apparent. From images of aliens, UFOs, and unicorns to badges symbolising freedom, rugby players with football-inspired shoulders for protection, and even his own language represented as an alien alphabet print. “I created a language akin to an ancient one”, Walter explained. “Sports and protective garments, particularly football, inspired the shoulder design. I also employed translucent fabrics in the collection to juxtapose this transparency and protection.”

When I asked Walter about the meaning behind the finale, he replied, “I utilised the clothing covers as a metaphor for the fashion world. Today, people suffer or die due to extreme behaviours that are unnecessary, spanning from high fashion to fast fashion. This is my response to that. The skeletons serve as a reference to death and terror, a call to cease terrorizing this world. Crash test dummies also served as a significant inspiration and a central theme within the collection.” “We face numerous issues such as disease, war, and climate change”, he continued. “The world around us is transforming at a rapid pace, and it often feels like we are constantly being used as crash test dummies, under relentless assault.”