Christian Wijnants was born in Brussels in 1977. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, in 2000, Wijnants worked with designers including Dries van Noten and Angelo Tarlazzi; In 2003 he launched his own line and has earned many impressive awards as the Swiss Textiles Award (2005) and the Andam Prize (2006). Since 2005 Christian is a teacher at the Royal Academy in Antwerp.
Wijnants has become known for his innovations in knitwear and his imaginative collections drawing on anything from Surrealism to wildlife. His Collections can be found in prestigious stores worldwide such as his collection to stores like Colette in Paris, Pineal Eye in London, Via Bus Stop in Japan and Henri Bendel in New York.
The FW 2011 collection is the logical continuation of the SS2011 collection and its African sources The colours of the collection are warm and subtle and refer to the nature: brick, mole, caramel, tobacco, beige and anthracite. The shapes are minimal, contrasting between sharp cuts and oversized shaped knit pieces. Fluid transparent skirts combined with big knitted alpaca cape, draped ribbed sweater on a masculine pants and long dresses with knotted sleeves are a few of the essential silhouettes of this season.
INTERVIEW
How would you describe your last collection?
The starting point of the collection was the idea of working with many layered prints that can also be translated into the knitwear. Inspired by Gerhard Richter’s Overpainted Photographs, the concept of images layering over each other was used to get abstract prints with an ethnical feeling. Using several animal motives and structures but also recycling floral prints from previous collections, the combination results in organic and graphical elements one upon the other. As used in ethnic prints the fauna and flora are the central themes of these experiments. Also the paintings of Nigerian painter Wangechi Mutu also inspired with their strange mix between human and animal.
What fabrics do you like working with the most?
I love to use knitting in the collection, making jacquard designs and intarsia knits, developing new stitches or working with 3dimensional shapes all in one. This season I also used felted knitted virgin wool for coats and dresses. I wanted the boiled wool resulting in a very soft and warm blanket- like feeling that covers you up to protect you against the dangers of this world. Usually I work with rich and natural fibers, a mix of authenticity and luxury.
Can you tell me a bit about your design process, from concept to completion?
Usually I start working with a period of research: I choose colors, themes and start making the prints. It’s only after that that I will start sketching and drawing. I work a lot on the dummy draping with fabrics or moulding directly on a model during fittings. Starting from old pieces from previous collections and manipulating/customising them stands for continuity in my work.
Do you follow trends as a designer?
No, I always like to start from my own personal research: inspiration can come from everywhere or anything that touches me or is around me: architecture, a book, a movie, a old piece from a previous collection… From these inspirations and different abstract feelings I try to imagine a new woman and her silhouette. I start imaginating what she would wear, what she would do in life, who she is, … It’s very exciting to design for this imaginary woman. A woman that does not exist ...yet.
What ideas do you consider important to communicate to your students?
Well for my class, which is knitwear, you need a lot of patience. The students are extremely motivated and excited about learning new techniques but they don’t always have time to deepen themselves in it. So it is very frustrating for some of them not to see a result immediately. That’s why they need to be ambitious and perseverant. I would say never give up and believe in yourself… sounds so cliché!
What are your future career goals and plans?
I would like to develop a more serious accessories collection and maybe a capsule collection only with knitwear. I would love one day also to collaborate with an older fashion house. It must be so great to reinterprate a designers lifetime work.
