Moving On From the ‘Antwerp Six’ - A Spotlight on Chloë Reners
Words by Hannah O’Keeffe
Edited by Rachel Hambly and Bailey Tolentino
The Antwerp Six (Source: L’Officiel Magazine)
The 2025 fashion graduates from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp have done it yet again. With the legacies of the ‘Antwerp Six’ nipping at their heels, the graduates, 18 to be exact, have a lot to live up to. And one graduate, Chloë Reners, has certainly done just that. As a current design intern at Christian Dior Couture in Paris, and a graduate of both a bachelor's in fashion and a master's degree from the Academy, Reners has certainly brought a wealth of experience to the table.
“The Antwerp Six” refers to six designers who graduated from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts between 1980 and 1981. The group: Ann Demeulemeester, Marina Yee, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Bikkembergs, Dirk Van Saene, and Walter Van Beirendonck; went from relatively unknown designers to being launched into the industry spotlight in 1986 after cramming themselves into a van to present their collections at the British Designer Show. Their label, “The Antwerp Six,” created by the press, represented their collective impact on the industry.
In the 80s, as subculture ruled the UK and London Fashion Week gained momentum, designer fashion began to mature into a financially viable business. This opportunity provided a stage for the young, experimental talent at the time. Nonetheless, 45 years after their British fashion debut, public interest has begun to shift toward newer innovations and designers in the industry.
Initially studying marketing at UC Leuven-Limburg, Reners discovered her passion for the industry while interning at House of Rubber in Amsterdam. Spending her evenings after her internship working on her portfolio, and teaching herself sewing and design through YouTube, she was accepted into a fashion school in the Netherlands. However, she had her eyes set on the Academy of Fine Arts, and a year and a half later, she left her degree to pursue her studies there.
The year in her master's program was spent searching for her own style as a designer, a pursuit she had never found time for during her bachelor's studies. She researched and found inspiration in archival pieces, Pinterest, contemporary interior design, bookstores, and embroidery techniques.
Chloe Rener’s Dot Dot Dot (Source: ENFTS TERRIBLES)
Reners’ graduate collection, titled Dot Dot Dot, explored women’s representation in surrealism. The name is a direct reference to the laser-cutting technique she uses in many of the pieces (as seen above), as well as to the three dots that appear when a sender is typing a text message. She observed that, in surrealist art, women were often transformed into something beyond themselves, through fragmentation or objectification. Many pieces in Reners’ collection displayed faces, in wave-like formations, an attempt to represent a blurred reality and imagination. Reners also collaborated with the Belgian designers behind KOMONO to create a pair of sunglasses for the collection that were sawed in half and horizontally shifted, to distort both symmetry and vision. Through this design experience, she wanted to explore the tension between the familiar and the edited.
The design approach tended to lean more minimal in the collection, with clear shapes and movements. Feminine fits remain consistent throughout, while avoiding the objectification that the collection itself critiques. Most recently, two pieces from Dot Dot Dot were featured on the cover of Elle Belgium.
Reners’ career is just taking off. While she continues her work at Dior, having just assisted with the women's Ready-To-Wear show this past summer, the next chapter of her journey is one to watch. With such a striking final collection and a clear, relentless dedication to her craft, she will, without a doubt, continue to create quite the name for herself.