“WINK WITH STARRY EYES” by Walter Van Beirendonck
In an era clouded by uncertainty and darkness, Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck offers a luminous response with his latest collection, WINK WITH STARRY EYES. Presented with a poetic manifesto during PFW, the collection is a heartfelt ode to innocence, curiosity, and enduring hope, filtered through a kaleidoscope of historical references and futuristic craft.
“I want to stay the starry-eyed, wide-eyed boy I always was,” Walter declares. That tender, rebellious optimism courses through every stitch, silhouette, and story in the collection. It is as much an artistic journey as it is a fashion statement, one that reclaims wonder in a jaded world.
A Journey Through Time and Texture
At its core, the collection fuses utilitarian workwear with avant-garde exuberance. Painter’s smocks, 18th-century skeleton suits, and the anarchic elegance of late style icon Anna Piaggi serve as early inspirations. These references are unraveled and reshaped, giving birth to garments that shimmer with contradiction, humble and highbrow, delicate yet defiant.
From oversized pockets and fabric-covered buttons to deconstructed tailoring and dreamlike, frayed silks, every detail is intentionally exaggerated, revealing Walter’s mastery in balancing brutality with finesse. There is joy in the clash of materials that are puckered, smocked, and distorted until they become something new, something surreal, something chic.
A New Romanticism
In his poetic pilgrimage, Walter brings the stars down to earth, “plucked stars out of the sky, glued them onto my eye-sockets,” a metaphor made material in the motif of starry eyes that reappears throughout the collection. These are not mere embellishments but symbols of resilience and a deep yearning for human connection.
Digital distortion becomes print: family photos glitched into emotional abstraction, floral motifs blurred with static, daisy chains woven into textile memory. Special Ikat fabrics, crafted by Italian artisans, may be the last of their kind, carrying the layered history of touch, time, and tradition.
Symbols, Amulets, and Soft Power
Accessories take on talismanic roles. Bowler hats by Stephen Jones are pierced with paper flowers, part armor, part poem. Pins and amulets adorn the garments like fragments of forgotten rituals, embodying sexuality, wildness, fragility, and hope.
With this collection, Walter invites us to imagine a world where banal becomes bespoke, where the past is not a prison but a palette, and where fashion is not just worn, but felt deeply and personally.
A Soft Rebellion
In a world asking, Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, Walter answers with a whisper and a wink. His collection is not just a reflection of the times, but a gentle rebellion against cynicism, a call to look back, look around, and look forward with starry eyes. And as he closes his poetic note: “From the sunny fields they wink at us, softly swaying, WITH STARRY EYES.”
Photo Credits: Totem fashion