I Smell a Hat: Walter van Beirendonck - Dream the World Awake

There is potentially nothing more annoying then finding out about something ridiculous and amazing that you would have given an internal organ to go to, and that you actually could have gone to had you known, after it is finished and you now have absolutely zero possibility of attending however hard you hope, plead, bribe, beg, offer inappropriate sexual favours or attempt to build time-travelling apparatus.

So bearing this pet hate of mine, I will do just that. Except I'll give you the faint possibility of hope by letting you know you still have about 3hrs to get there, which is actually worse because you and I both know you have no chance of making it there in time, but I did make it just in time and I'm gonna rub it in! My bad. That said, you probably already went because your finger positively creates the pulse, not just limps behind it like mine.... this exhibition has been on since July!

The ridiculous and amazing I'm talking about? The Walter van Beirendonck retrospective - Dream the World Awake at RMIT which finishes at 5pm on Sat 5th Oct 2013.

About the other Walter you need to know in your life, Walter van Beirendonck (The first of course being White. Not Disney. Unless that is we're talking Tron), WvB as I'll refer to him needs little introduction to those in the fashion know, but as I'm not proclaiming to be a signed-up member of this group, I'll tell you what I have learned today...

WvB was one of the influential trailblazing Antwerp 6 (NB very different to the Birmingham 6 or the Guildford 4 - this place/number association thing must have been all the rage in the 80's!), a group of graduates from Antwerp's Royal Acadamy of Fine Arts, which included Dries van Noten and Ann Demeulemeester, who exploded onto the London fashion scene in the early 80's with their avant garde and progressive ideas, and a fashion show apparently pulled out of a rented truck.

The exhibition brings together pieces from WvBs collections, images and videos ranging from his graduate collection back in 1980 through to his A/W 2011/12 collection "Hand on Heart".

I am a big fan of the surreal, absurd, avant garde, mad colour and of course head gear, so this grabbed me by the proverbials, swung me round a bit and gave me a huge dose of inspiration.

Colour, sex, humour, surrealism, tribal motifs, fantasy, sado-machism, innocence, playfulness, exaggeration, psychedelia, cartoon superheroes, war, disorientation are all words and themes that came to mind when viewing the exhibition, and not typically ideas you expect to find existing in apparent easy harmony. Colour and humour definitely being the glue holding firm these normally juxtaposing ideas - humour eh? Such a leveller! But deliberate juxtaposition now seems such an lazy concept in comparison to making opposites work in such unity. WvB also has an evocative and completely spot-on way with words; Dream the World Awake is exactly what you do in this exhibition.

So WvB, someone I highly recommend you look into especially if you are into the surreal and headwear like me... except you probably won't be able to look into him in Melbourne anytime soon :o(

AAx