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Volume 04 — Issue 05
Neighbourhood Life
+ Global Style
Neighbourhood White wash Life Ivory coats Style Pale shape
Music Girls aloud Culture Cloud sourcing + The Food Special
The white album

6
Publisher and editor-in-chief
Nicholas lewis
Design
facetofacedesigN +
pleaseletmedesigN
Writers
sabiNe clappaert
guy dittrich
rose Kelleher
Nicholas lewis
melisaNde mcburNie
JacK moyersoeN
philippe pourhashemi
sarah schug
sam steverlyNcK
robbert vaN Jaarsveld
Photographers/Illustrators
ulriKe biets
Julie calbert
sarah eechaut
yaNa foque
veerle frisseN
meliKa Ngombe
grégoire pleyNet
stiNe sampers
yassiN serghiNi
virassamy
Interns
Kathy boros (communication)
pauliNe miKo (photography)
raya rayax (graphic design)
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The Word is published five times a year by
JamPublishing, 107 Rue Général Henry
Straat 1040 Brussels Belgium. Reproduction,
in whole or in part, without prior permission
is strictly prohibited. All information correct
up to the time of going to press. The publishers
cannot be held liable for any changes in
this respect after this date.
© Sarah Eechaut
The editor’s letter
As was to be expected, the white album’s editor’s letter really was the
one where my brain’s copywriting function decided to bug out. I toyed
with different angles, jotted down a few thoughts, put certain ideas to
the team. I even considered leaving the entire page blank. You know,
cause I’m smart like that. Yet, despite the ideas flowing abundantly,
words simply didn’t want to come.
Maybe it was the realisation that an increasing amount of people read
the magazine, and this page specifically, and all the weight and responsibility
that came with (let’s just pretend here for a second alright?).
Or maybe that, after twenty-plus editions, you’ve kind of done the
rounds in terms of blueprints to editor’s letters (there’s the ‘this is what
you can expect in this edition’ version, the ‘there was a moment when
we thought we wouldn’t make the deadline’ version and, my personal
favourite, the ‘this edition reminded me of why I got into publishing in
the first place’ version) and there’s only so many times the format can
be re-written. Most likely though, it simply was the fact that, after a
long and strenuous year, both professionally and personally, I felt most
comfortable letting the pages, and the stories, do the talking.
The thing is, our team of designers, writers, photographers, illustrators,
stylists and interns go to great lengths to translate a given edition’s
colour into content. They don’t merely pitch ideas and execute them.
They own their stories and live through their subjects, and their work
really needs no introduction. So maybe, just maybe, it’s a good thing
words failed me for once.
Back in February 2012 so make sure to sign-on to our newsletter, visit
our website, like us on Facebook and read us on the iPad to be kept in
the loop on all things Word until then.
Nicholas Lewis
On this cover
Artist Manor Grunewald
in his Ghent studio

8 The contents
Neighbourhood
23
White 'hoods
25
Wired for sound
30
My little white screen
Life
34
Facing the blank canvas
38
White coats
STyLe
46
Damir Doma’s quest for meaning
56
The school of white socks
58
Runaway bride
MuSic
68
White car
72
Girls
The food SpeciaL
77
Bouchéry, Brussels
78
A burger bonanza
80
A table for Belgium
cuLTure
88
Shedding light
90
Above the clouds

10 The contributors
Julie Calbert
photographer
Pages
90–93
About
We first profiled Julie’s work
in our Blue album, her tone
and narrative fitting the edition’s
overall direction like a
glove. For this white album, we
instantly thought of the recentlygraduated
rising star for our end
of magazine section, ’The view’.
Task
We knew we’d want to do
something with, or on, clouds
for our white album, but weren’t
quite sure how. We put the idea
to Julie, whose first response
was slightly dubious. “It’s a little
bizarre as a theme,” was her exact
answer. Still, she took on the
challenge, and delivered a softspoken,
series on clouds of all
shape and form.
Quote
“I just spent several hours in the
air, watching what was going on,
the comings and goings, the flat
areas. That’s what’s fun with the
clouds, everyone can see what he
wants, and invent stories.”
It’s a Word’s world
Rose Kelleher
writer
Pages
23, 25, 26, 42–45
About
First it was the odd article or two,
and now Rose’s co-ordinating
entire features for us – as well as
much more that the odd article or
two. Irish but based in Brussels
for four years now, she freelances
for a number of publications in
the UK, but Brussels really is
where her heart is at.
Task
For this edition, Rose interviewed
transparency advocates,
looked into the white
noise syndrome, had a laugh
with the telling sides of having
landed in a white neighbourhood
and, finally, had a crack at
selecting some of our best and
most outlandish coke scenes
– just for kicks.
Quote
“There’s a scene in Robocop
where some coiffed hotshot
snorts cocaine off a hooker’s
chest. It’s worth the hour and a
half of 80s you have to watch to
get to it. The scene didn’t make
the list, but what I learned from
this was that there are women
who passed as sexy in the 80s
who would never make the
grade today.”
Grégoire Pleynet
photographer
Pages
80–83
About
Grégoire was brought to our
attention through photographer
Tine Claerhout, whom he assists.
Of Belgo-French origin, we first
started working with Grégoire
on our Blue album release party,
for which he happily snapped up
the evening’s beautiful people.
Task
For this white album, we enlisted
Grégoire to capture the cream
of the crop of traditional Belgian
tables in Brussels – six of them
in total. As well as photographing
the restaurants, their staff
and their specialities, he also
sometimes got to dig into
a plate or two.
Quote
“Conviviality is the common
thread binding all these traditional
restaurants together.”
Guy Dittrich
writer
Page
77
About
Guy’s a freelance writer with
a special knack for design and
travel stories. Based in Brussels,
the British-born writer freelances
for publications such as
Wallpaper as well as being in
charge of the Wallpaper City
Guide to Brussels. A newcomer
to the magazine’s pages, Guy’s
our go-to guy for those stories
that float in the upper crusts
of society.
Task
For this edition’s food special,
we commissioned Guy to review
Bouchéry, Brussels’ latest contender
for a Michelin star.
Quote
“Like many experiences in
Brussels, Bouchéry is modest
in nature but a real treat.
The Bruxellois are rightly proud
of their cuisine and this is a
stand out venue.”

12
01
08
05
07
The whiteboard
Exhibitions Arts Music Shows Parties
03
01. Currently on Word radio waves: Dynooo’s latest LP Vvideo Hair, out on Surf Kill (email wewrite@thewordmagazine.be for your chance to win a 12” edition of the Ghent-based prodigy
producer’s album) and Californian two-piece Girls’ follow-up effort Father, Son, Holy Ghost out on True Panther (turn to page 72 for an interview with frontman Christopher Owens). /
02. Arizona Blueberry White Tea, the freshest thing to have hit Brussels streets since Vitaminwater. / 03. Brussels’ town hall gets the snowball treatment. / 04. Fluocaril toothpaste was a major
part of our childhood. Just as much as cod liver oil tablets and an-apple-a-day dressing downs were. / 05. Launched earlier this year by Ghinzu frontman John Stargasm and Frederic Nicolay,
Volga’s playful take on Russian references and subtle design detail have made it the house draught at some of the city’s choosiest drinking dens. Pictured with its standard bottle is the beer’s
nine-pack flat pack, soon to be hitting the shelves of a supermarket near you. / 06. The Whitey Album by Ciccone Youth (1988), The Wall by Pink Floyd (1979) and Goo by Sonic Youth (1990). /
07. A vintage soap box found at Les Petits Riens / Spullenhulp. / 08. Want to know what gets us through deadlines? Oreo cookies and a fresh glass of milk. / 09. The office’s trusted white teapot,
bought for a bargain at Brussels’ flea market. All photography Yassin Serghini.
06
09
04
02

01. Worlds colliding
Encompassing contemporary photographs
and images of recent decades as well as
daguerreotypes, ferrotypes and ambrotypes
which illustrate the first 100 years before the
negative was even born, this exhibition takes
the viewer on a journey through time and
through a country of contrasts whilst staying
clear of the usual clichés (you know, see, sex
and sun). At times dreadful, at others breathtakingly
beautiful, Bozar’s extensive and eclectic
visual voyage deep into a land of opposites
and extremes perfectly captures the vastness,
cultural diversity and geographic heterogeneity
of the Amazon rain forest’s desolate hinterland
that characterises Brazil in so many ways.
Extremes
Brazilian Photography 1840/2011
Until 15 th January 2012
Bozar, Brussels
bozar.be
*
ThE ParTy you CaN’T MISS
black out
@ Mr. Wong (Brussels), on 10 th December
– Catclub’s wild little sister is back
with another memorable night blending
old school house with italo-disco and
new wave. Jessica 6 LIVE (NyC), Baris
K (Istanbul) and Lady Jane (Brussels)
behind the decks to make sure you’re
kept on your feet until dawn.
catclub.be
02. Space oddity
A visual artist since 1983, Dutch-born
Boris Tellegen (also known as Delta by his
street-savvy peers) first began as a graffiti artist
in and around Amsterdam, going on to build
up quite the name for himself across European
shores through his use of 3D techniques.
Having now graduated to the world of studios
and galleries, his current work still exudes the
energy and sparks of his graffiti years (the geometrical
and three-dimensional nature of most
of his works remains) although it has gained
in maturity as far as the execution and, most
importantly, the narrative are concerned. His
works tell a story now, come to life and battle
for attention: it’s not always easy to look at
Tellegen’s work, although that only adds to its
sheer power and immediacy.
Boris Tellegen aka Delta: abundance
From 24 th November to 23 rd December
Alice Gallery, Brussels
alicebxl.com
Neighbourhood
Belgium
03. fade to grey
With its comprehensive retrospective of
internationally renowned Belgian photographer
Dirk Braeckman, Leuven’s M Museum
provides as extensive an overview as possible
of the famously restrained photographer’s body
of work, ranging from his early-beginning selfportraits
to his newer landscape images. What’s
more, the viewer gets the chance to examine the
artist’s experimentations with digital photography,
a technique he only recently began toying
with. The mysterious and anonymous quality
of his photos however prevails throughout
Braeckman’s whole oeuvre, avoiding to emphasize
the link with the subject and opting instead
for unfocused presentations in dark shades of
grey. Absolutely not to be missed.
Dirk Braeckman
Until 8 th January 2012
M Museum, Leuven
mleuven.be
04. unsolved mysteries
Robert Devriendt’s miniature oil paintings
tell intimate stories by showing fragments
of people, animals, landscapes or spaces which
greatly resemble film stills. With his special attention
to detail and precise, realistic painting technique
harking back to the Flemish Primitives,
he creates an intriguing world full of sensuality.
A fetishist, a young girl, a blood stained dog,
a taxidermist – these and other figures make
regular appearances in his at times obscure and
gloomy series of work, set in a natural decor with
Devriendt slipping into the role of a hermit living
an insular life in the woods. Fittingly, the exhibition
The woods of love and horror, which bears
resemblance to an unfinished film, is inspired by
murder mysteries and crime thrillers.
robert Devriendt:
The woods of love and horror
Until 23 rd December
Galerie Baronian Francey, Brussels
baronianfrancey.com
*
ThE FESTIVaL To CaTCh
autumn falls
@ Brussels, from 21 st to 27 th November
– reading like a rollcall of indie rock’s
current cream of the crop (everyone
from Suuns and Metronomy to Matthew
herbert and Fool’s Gold), autumn Falls’
second edition comes back with an ever
bigger line up, ovetaking the city’s live
venues for a five day rampage.
autumnfalls.be
( 01 10 )
01.
02.
03.
04.
13
© Courtesy A.L.I.C.E. Gallery © Walter Firmo
© Courtesy Baronian Francey © Dirk Braeckman, Courtesy of Zeno X Gallery Antwerp

© Courtesy of the artist and D+T Project gallery © Vincent Fournier
© Gordon Watkinson
© Peter Lindbergh
14 The diary
05. 05. When less is more
Rarely in history has a design and architectural
movement had such a profound impact
as Bauhaus which laid down the principles that
would go on to become the foundations of modern
architecture. With his archive images of buildings
constructed between 1923 and 1930 by Bauhaus
legends Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe or Hannes Meyer, American photographer
Gordon Watkinson captures their timeless character,
drawing comparisons with recent constructions
built by such contemporary architects as
Allmann Sattler Wappner or Galli & Rudolf.
Embracing technology and functionality whilst
focusing on finding solutions for design problems
in urban planning and housing, Bauhaus, 90
years after its creation, is as relevant as ever, a fact
Watkinson’s photographs make abundantly clear.
06.
07.
08.
Bauhaus XX-XXI:
Photographs by Gordon Watkinson
Until 5 th February 2012
Civa, Brussels
civa.be
06. Space oddities
You could say photographer Vincent
Fournier has it in for robots and rockets. Having
travelled the world on a quest to document the
secret and unknown world of space exploration
(his passion project has taken the Frenchman
everywhere from Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut
Training Centre in Russia and the Mars Desert
Research Station in Utah to the Atacama Desert
Observatories in Chile, Fournier’s photographs
capture with mystifying exactitude the intriguing
world of space research, doing so with all the
innocence, exuberance and excitement of a child.
This is the first comprehensive exhibition of the
artist’ work in Brussels, and is sure to delight fans
of Solaris and 2001, A Space Odissey alike.
Vincent Fournier – Space project
From 17 th November until 18 th January 2012
Joye Gallery, Brussels
joyegallery.be
*
ThE arT FaIr To Go To
Lineart art fair
@ Flanders Expo (Ghent), from 2 nd to 6 th
December – otfen living in art Brussels’
shadow, Lineart has nonetheless carved
out a niche for itself as the art fair for the
studious. Celebrating its 30 th birthday, this
year’s edition comes with a special focus
on Japan, as well as a newly established
photography section, Photo art Zone.
lineart.be
07. Money makes the world go round
Exploring themes of capitalism, corporate
cultures and political speech, Fiction, Narrative
& History touches upon some highly controversial
issues of our times through the works
of several different artists. With his video
analysis of the Marxist and Communist legacies
in today’s world, American artist Zachary
Formwalt unravels its close-knit relationships
to contemporary symbols and media imagery.
Swedish artist duo Goldin&Senneby host a
conference surrounding the movie Headless at
Regus which delves into the artists’ research into
offshore financing and the activities of an imaginary
company called Headless. And finally,
Dutch video and performance artist Nicoline
van Harskamp uses footage of conversations,
speeches or autobiographies to reveal the power
of the spoken word. High-minded and highbrowed
stuff not for the faint-hearted.
Fiction, Narrative & history
Until 23 rd December
D+T Project
dt-project.com
*
LaST DayS To SEE
Thierry de cordier
@ Xavier hufkens Gallery (Brussels),
until 10 th December – With artworks
dominated by dark colors and grey
tints the Belgian contemporary artist
creates a gloomy mental landscape full
of fragility and inner suffering whilst
searching for protection, symbolised best
by his sculptures of semi-human figures
and primitive buildings giving shelter.
xavierhufkens.com
08. behind the runways
With his melancholic photographs of
international supermodels Linda Evangelista,
Kate Moss or even Tatjana Patitz marked by their
effortless character and emotional depth, German
fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh brought
the new faces to worldwide attention. A master
of black and white photography, he contributed
more than any in shaping the fashion scene
of the last 25 years. Combining a selection of
Lindbergh’s world famous images with his more
recent work as well as a series he shot for Vogue in
Berlin in 2009, this comprehensive exhibition is a
must for photography and fashion fans alike.
Peter Lindbergh
Until 29 th January 2012
FotoMuseum, Antwerp
fotomuseum.be

09. Video killed the radio star
Mixing reality and fiction, Belgian artist
and filmmaker Johan Grimonprez, a child of
the first TV generation, explores and documents
the ever-growing influence television,
cinema, advertising and the news have on our
perception of the world and the imminent risk
of manipulation. His video works, which play
with delusion and deception whilst exposing
the importance of the moving image in
our lives, are based on recycled images taken
from news broadcasts, documentary material,
Hollywood movies, animated films and commercials
as well as from historical archival
items. In his award-winning video collage
Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y for instance Grimonprez
explores the worldwide history of high-jackings.
And it is exactly this kind of uncanny
relevance that draws you in. Think of him as a
Michael Moore but with an even bigger grin.
Johan Grimonprez
Until 29 th January
S.M.A.K, Gent
smak.be
10. always coca-cola
Since its invention 125 years ago, Coca-
Cola has become the drink that conquered the
world - with an iconic design recognised by
all. The Design Museum Gent has gathered
a massive collection of advertising artworks,
photos, bottles, cans, posters, vending machines
and paintings illustrating the evolution of the
Coca-Cola brand and especially the story of its
design, with a particular focus on its innovative
and influential advertising. Its persuasive power
is best revealed by the Santa Claus campaign,
having managed to change its identifying colour
from green to red. Star of the show: an original
Haddon Sundblom painting from the legendary
campaign.
Coca-Cola: 125 years of design
Until 26 th February 2012
Design Museum, Ghent
designmuseumgent.be
*
ThE NIGhT you CaN’T MISSS
bozar Night
@ Centre for Fine arts (Brussels), on 25 th
November – Following its Bozar Electronic
Weekend end of october, electronic music
comes back to haunt the Bozar’s halls for a
night at the museum guaranteed to be high
on trebbles and bass. Top of the bill The
herbaliser band and Legowelt live. Boom.
bozar.be
© Johan Grimonprez, still from dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997)
© Coca-Cola
09.
10.
Neighbourhood
United Kingdom
11.
12.
© Courtesy of Cornelia Baltes and Bloomberg New Contemporaries
© Terence Conran, circa 1950 © Ray Williams
( 11 16 )
11. The next generation
Putting forward new artistic talent and
exposing recent visual arts developments,
Bloomberg New Contemporaries showcases
the crème de la crème of the UK’s art
school graduates, often putting its finger with
surprising accuracy on the next generation’s
crop of rising stars. The project, established
in 1949, is devoted to give young emerging
artists the opportunity to shine in a highprofile
exhibition at an essential moment in
their career, whilst revealing to audiences
the newest trends to have hit the art world.
International superstars Damien Hirst and
David Hockney are just two examples of
former contributors.
15
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011:
In the Presence
From 23 rd November to 15 th January 2012
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
ica.org.uk
*
ThE SaLE you CaN’T MISS
Midcentury Modern
@ Dulwich College (London), on 20 th
November – This one-day shop is the
kind of place where you’ll find 20 th
century design classics sitting side to
side with pieces from emerging British
designer talents. Furniture, wallpaper,
ceramics or fabrics – everything’s up for
grabs and, what’s more, suitable for all
kinds of budgets.
modernshows.com
12. democratising design
Sir Terence Conran, design pioneer,
retailer and restaurateur, has influenced the
look of the British home like no other. With
the foundation of his internationally successful
furniture chain Habitat in 1964, he transformed
the face of British interiors forever,
creating an entirely new furnishing experience
characterised by modern, simple forms,
natural materials and a fresh colour palette.
The London Design Museum pays tribute to
Conran’s legacy and his unique impact on contemporary
life, celebrating his 80 th birthday
with a major exhibition displaying the breadth
of his work that also includes projects such
as designing the interior of the Concorde and
Terminal One at Heathrow airport.
Terence Conran: The way we live now
Until 4 th March 2012
Design Museum, London
designmuseum.org

© Paul McCarthy, courtesy the artist and Hauser &
Wirth, photo: Fredrik Nilsen
© Laura Oldfield Ford
© Brian Paumier, courtesy Fred (London) Limited
© Batman and Bunny, Image courtesy Luhring Augustine ©George Condo
16
13.
14.
15.
16.
The diary
13. urban wastelands
With a pitiless and relentless eye, Laura
Oldfield Ford unveils London’s changing
city landscape in times of urban renewal and
redevelopment. Her drawings, composed
with ballpoint pens as well as acrylic and
spray paint spotlight the city’s abandoned
places and wastelands in a photorealistic way.
Ford’s highly political works, pinpoint the
social tensions between those who can afford
to shop in the glittering new shopping malls
and those who are left behind – a theme that
the artist explores extensively in her selfpublished
’zine ’Savage Messiah’.
Laura oldfield Ford:
Transmissions from a discarded future
From 25 th November to 14 th January 2012
Hales Gallery, London
halesgallery.com
*
ThE MarKET To Go To
pop up Vintage fair
@ Islington assembly hall (London), on
20 th November – Whether a granma-style
cupcake stand is what you’re after, or a
perfect-fit vintage piece is what’s topping
your wishlist, chances are Islington’s
Pop up Vintage Fair has a stall for you.
Fashion, accessories, jewelry, homeware
and antiques all combine to make this
market a vintage lover’s paradise.
facebook.com/popupvintagefairs
14. Queer as folk
Taking a fresh look at identity, reflection
and the sense of self, this group show
by Fred (London) Limited exhibits recent
portrait works by gay and transgender artists
from around the globe. Using their bodies as
a canvas and examining their own projected
image, the artists explore wider and deeper
themes such as their relationship with their
health or biting cultural and political issues
through customary humour and wit. Ranging
from a wall of wigs to a pair of hairy breasts
or poses in black lace in the corner of a sheep
pen, this self-reflective body of work excels
and endears through its sheer diversity.
Queer Self Portraits Now
From 24 th November to 29 th January 2012
Fred [London] Ltd, London
fred-london.com
15. american psycho
Paul McCarthy is not only one of the
most important and influential contemporary
American artists but also one of the most willingly
provocative. Disrespecting and mocking
sacred cultural references, his sexually charged
and somewhat violent works are a critique of
the American culture and consumerism. Since
the early 90s, McCarthy’s performance-based
art is mainly focused on creating sculptures,
many of them mechanical, which he directs in
monumental stage productions. The seemingly
chaotic but nevertheless thoughtfully arranged
’Pig Island’ for instance, a mix of low and high
culture that has been evolving over a period of
seven years, exposes an immoral world with a
population ranging from Hollywood actors and
politicians to Disney characters or pirates and
cowboys. It’ll disturb and shock you, yes, but it
is also guaranteed to make you laugh.
Paul McCarthy: The King, The Island,
The Train, The house, The Ship
Until 14 th January 2012
Hauser & Wirth, London
hauserwirth.com
16. beauties and beasts
In what is the first major retrospective of
American artist George Condo featuring about
80 of his paintings and sculptures from the past
28 years, tragedy and comedy collide unashamedly.
Uniting the beautiful and the grotesque,
Condo’s portraits, displaying fantasy characters
as well as The Queen of England for instance,
are defined by their adventurous, imaginative
and provocative character. Completed by a series
of sculptural heads made out of gilded bronze,
Mental States provides an overview of the body
of work created by one of Keith Haring’s or Jean
Michel Basquiat’s contemporaries.
George Condo: Mental states
Until 8 th January 2012
Hayward Gallery, London
southbankcentre.co.uk
*
ThE arT FaIr you CaN’T MISS
rca Secret 2011
@ royal College of art (London), on 26 th
November – The idea is rather straightforward:
postcard-size artworks, all
going under the hammer for 45 pound
a pop, and all done under the auspice of
anonymity. So you could just as well end
up with a piece from an undergad as you
could from, say, Tracy Emin.
rca.ac.uk/secret

18
Holland ( 17 18 ) France
17. Job application
In the context of the museum’s largescale
renovation, the award-winning Belgian
artist-come-design duo Studio Job (Job Smeets
and Nynke Tynagel), were commissioned to
refurbish the building’s entrance hall. The result
is an ostentatious and extravagant fantasy world
inspired by the private clubs of the 19 th century,
full of smoking gentlemen in top hats and displaying
an outlandish sense of luxury. Including
detailed features such as breast-shaped lightings,
an assortment of plastic gothic chairs or
a sculptured fountain, the designers stay true
to their roots whilst continuing to apply their
unique blend of ironic wit and old-and-new
culture clashes to dizzying effects.
Studio Job & the Groninger Museum
Until 4 th March 2012
Groninger Museum, Groningen
groningermuseum.nl
18. The times they are a-changin’
On the occasion of its 10 th anniversary
Foam Amsterdam takes the opportunity to
take a step back and reflect on photography as
an art form, its recent developments and, most
important of all, its future. Throughout the
last few years, photography has undergone
radical changes, the transition from analogue
to digital photography being the most significant
one: photographs that could once only
be touched and were printed on paper have
today turned into ephemeral, elusive images.
By presenting varying exhibition concepts,
four different artists try to find a response
to the question ’What’s next?’, taking into
account the different aspects of today’s photography
as digital imagery.
What’s next?
Four visions on exhibiting photography
Until 7 th December
Foam, Amsterdam
foam.nl
*
ThE FESTIVaL To CaTCh
international documentary
film festival
@ amsterdam, until 27 th November
– Ever since its first edition in 1988,
the IDFa has grown into becoming the
biggest documentary film festival on the
planet. opening the festival this year
is Danish director Mads Brügger’s ’The
ambassador’, which exposes the trade in
diplomatic passports in africa.
idfa.nl
© Studio Job Silverware (portrait) 2007, photo: Robert
Kot ©Bisazza Mosaico
© Foam What’s Next photo ©Mark Horn
17.
18.
The diary
19.
20.
© A young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C. 1966 ©The Estate of Diane Arbus
© Mur de bananes, Deitch Projects, New York, USA, 2008
( 19 20 )
19. access all areas
In what is the first major retrospective in
France of American photographer Diane Arbus,
one of the most internationally renowned and
influential photo artists in history, her wellknown
photographs of the weird and wonderful
are juxtaposed with many that have never
been publicly exhibited before. With a special
affinity for marginal people living on the fringes
of society, Arbus found her subjects walking
through New York City or in dressing rooms,
hotel lobbies and living rooms whilst traveling
through the United States - portraying nudists,
giants, dwarfs and transvestites as well as everyday
couples, children or middle-class families.
A must for fans of Arbus’ travelling circus of
fantastical beings.
Diane arbus
Until 5 th February 2012
Jeu de Paume, Paris
jeudepaumes.org
*
ThE ShoP To DroP By
damir doma pop up Store
@ L’Eclaireur (Paris), until 30 th December
– Damir Doma, up and coming fashion
design talent from Croatia, temporarily
exposes his original creations in Parisian
fashion store L’Eclaireur. More than a
mere pop up boutique, the temporary store
will also recreate the designer’s studio
environment with artistic installations.
leclaireur.com
20. The man who sold the world
Selling culture, selling corporations,
selling friends and even himself. These are
the four categories Les Arts Décoratifs uses to
present a selection of Austrian artist and Stefan
Sagmeister’s body of work. One of the most
original graphic designers of his generation and
a master of the art of selling, Sagmeister, who
has worked for music legends Lou Reed or the
Rolling Stones as well as internationally established
brands such as Levi’s or BMW, makes
no distinction between artistic and commercial
design. Highlighting the breadth of his graphic
language, the exhibition combines intimate
drawings, gigantic installations, posters, logos
and commercial catalogues to provide a rounded
view of Sagmeister’s last seven years of sales.
Stefan Sagmeister: another exhibit
about promotion and sales material
Until 19 th February 2012
Les Arts Décoratifs
lesartsdecoratifs.fr

20
James blake
@ L’ ancienne
Belgique
on 21 st November
Proving once again that soft
is the new loud, 22 year old
London-based James Blake
has taken the world by storm
with his minimalistic, pareddown
productions and
sweet-scented vocals. Fragile
yet sharp, Blake’s self-titled
2010 debut became one of
the most acclaimed album
releases of 2010, placing
his sound somewhere
between new-age Soul and
Electronica. What Brian
Eno would sound like had he
been born in the year 2000.
Plays Amsterdam
(Paradiso)
on 22 nd November
Plays London
(HMV Forum)
on 30 th November
The horrors
@ L’ ancienne
Belgique
on 8 th December
Four years after the
release of their debut
album, The Horrors have
developed from a rather
experimental gothicinfluenced
garage-rock
band with ridiculously
big hair into a matured,
more mainstream-pleasing,
wide-reaching outfit whose
most recent album ’Skying’
even made it into the UK
Top 5 album charts. Think
cold 80s synth sounds,
psychedelic rock and
excursions into shoegaze.
Play Paris
(Bataclan)
on 7 th December
Play Amsterdam
(Melkweg)
on 11 th December
come Truise
and Nosedrip
@ Charlatan
on 23 rd November
American Seth Haley’s
electronic solo project with
the comical stage name –
based on a spoonerism of
Tom Cruise – produces
enthralling chill-wave
tunes tilting towards 80s
computer music, electronic
funk and a heavy load of
synthesizers. Something of
a harder-nosed Dam Funk.
With as supporting act
Belgium’s Nosedrip (think
The Gaslamp Killer), the
night promises to be heavy
on the bass and high on
emotions.
caribou
Vibration
ensemble
@ Vooruit
on 8 th December
Besides the highly acclaimed
studio album ’Swim’ –
who hasn’t danced to this
summer’s electro pop anthem
’Odessa’ – the champions
of new disco released a live
album featuring a rather
unlikely collaboration:
Caribou performed together
with the so-called Vibration
Ensemble in New York
including a number of other
great musicians such as
Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden,
a choir, several horns and
various drummers. Don’t
miss the rare opportunity to
see the Caribou Vibration
Ensemble perform together
in Ghent!
Play London (Scala)
on 7 th December
The diary
The pick of gigs to come
Suuns
@ VK
on 24 th November
Probably the darkest
(and loudest) thing to
come out of Canada, the
four-piece known for its
intense live shows offers
a hypnotic, pitch-black
sound characterised by
pulsating beats, howling
sirens, shouting guitars and
lead singer Ben Shemie’s
whispering vocals.
Gloomy but nonetheless
dancefloor-worthy, this
will delight the fans of Can
and Talking Heads alike.
Play London
(Scala)
on 22 nd November
Play Paris
(Maroquinerie)
on 23 rd November
battles
@ De Kreun
on 8 th December
Battles’ math-rock, sharp
and unforgiving, has an
intensity to it not unlike
the last couple of seconds
just before a tornado. Their
music exudes a sense of
menace, not really through
their compositions but
more through the band’s
on-point delivery. Listen
to their latest album, Gloss
Drop, and you’ll know
what we mean. Battles don’t
fuck around, even without
a charismatic front man.
Play London
(HMV Forum)
on 21st November
panda bear
@ Botanique
on 28 th November
Noah Lennox, Animal
Collective ringleader, has
more than a trick under his
sleeve. Having surprised
Collective fans with his solo
project Person Pitch four
years ago, he’s now back with
his latest baby, Panda Bear.
Effortlessly reconciling
experimental electronica
with retro-style psychedelic
rock, Lennox continues to
create timeless, subliminal
chill-wave soundscapes
that delight in their depth.
Supported by New York
underground cult band
Gang Gang Dance, this one
promises to be colourful.
Plays Paris
(La Gaîté Lyrique)
on 29 th November
Plays London
(Electric Ballroom)
on 1 st December
Thurston
Moore
@ Vooruit
on 13 th December
He isn’t as angst-ridden
as he was in his earlier
years (he plays acoustic
now, publishes literary
works and actually looks
fifty) but, although Noise
legend Thurston Moore
has mellowed-out quite
a lot lately, he retains the
same mystic and intensity
that elevated his cult band
Sonic Youth to legendary
status. With his latest
album, Demolished
Thoughts, produced by
Beck, the night won’t be
as wild as it once would
have been.
Plays Paris (La
Gaîté Lyrique) on 11th
December
Plays Amsterdam (De
Guif) on 12th December
andy butler
(dJ set) &
Jeremy glenn
@ Vooruit
on 2 nd December
Having done more than
anyone in bringing some
disco cool back to the
dance floor with his
Hercules & Love Affair
crew, Andy Butler has
since become the unofficial
spokesman for a generation
of nostalgic club music
lovers. Playing a DJ set
and supported by Jeremy
Glenn (We Play House),
expect a night of suggestive
danse moves and sexy-hot
dance grooves.
friendly fires
@ Botanique
on 15 th December
It’s been three years since
Friendly Fires first popped
up on our radar with their
self-titled debut album. In
May of this year, the UK
band released its follow-up
album, Pala, which proved
its worth in sonic layering
and distances the band
from its earlier days of
’danceable rock’. Think
Klaxons but with more
soul. Think Azari & III but
with more percussions and
live instruments.
Play Amsterdam
(Melkweg) on 16th
December
Play Luxembourg
(Kulturfabrik) on 17th
December
das racist
@ Trix
on 7 th December
Das Racist have carved
out a nice little niche for
themselves in the hip hop
world with their blend of
insider jokes and off-track
references. They’re funny,
they’re smart and, what’s
more, they actually can
rap. What’s more, they’ve
attracted the attention of
hip hop heavyweights, with
Company Flow front man
El-P name-dropping the trio
whenever he’s got a chance
to. Jokes and beats, what
more could you want really?
Play London
(Xoyo)
on 1st December
Play Paris
(Le Point Ephémère)
on 6th December
Play Amsterdam
(Sugar Factory)
on 8 th December
Stereo Mcs
@ Trix
on 18 th December
We all grew up with Stereo
MCs’ groovy blend of
dance-rap, with songs like
Step it Up and Connected
topping our nineties
playlist. Back with its
latest album Emperor’s
Nightingale, the boys
might not pack the same
punch as before, but we
still wouldn’t’t miss the
chance to catch these
crossover legends.

The Word & Levis
presents
The white album’s colour chart
—
A collaborative study in differents shades of white
7200 – Duifwit

22
The papers
Cinema Art Society Crime Retail
The white papers
In what turned out to be a very large interpretation of
the colour white, this month’s papers see us talking to
a hostage negotiator, speculate on the end of the white
race, round up some memorable cocaine scenes, visit a
store entirely dedicated to paper, wonder why ’white’
neighbourhoods aren’t as clearly defined in the human
consciousness as, say, ’Black’ or ’Asian’ neighbourhoods
and, finally, get to the bottom of that little white screen that’s
suddenly appeared in Brussels’ Dansaert/Dansaart district.
Says all kinds of different whites really.
Writers Sabine Clappaert, Rose Kelleher, Nicholas Lewis, Sarah Schug and Sam Steverlynck

© Virassamy
White ’hoods
If there is such a thing as a “white neighbourhood”,
those guys have got the organic food
shop thing nailed to the fucking floor. With
tongue lodged firmly in cheek, copywriter
Christian Lander created a blog back in 2008
called stuffwhitepeoplelike, an inventory of
everything left-wing, upper-middle-class and
appealing to a certain “kind” of Caucasian
that stretched our satirical sensibilities all
the way from “going camping” to “Barack
Obama” (not on the list – going camping with
Barack Obama). This pop-psychology highway
rest-stop of ridiculousness led to 20 million
page visits and a Random House dotted line.
It generated belly laughter and hyperventilating
accusations of racism in equal measure,
though none of the stereotypes are particularly
demeaning. Lander’s “white” people, those of
a designation that once wasn’t a designation at
all, a default while everything else was some
kind of “ethnic”, always had the luxury of not
having to grapple with the significance of their
own ethnic background. In Brussels, we are a
Neighbourhood
ˆ
“ But if you have ‘Arabic’ and ‘Black’ and ‘Asian’ communities, which are (rightly
or wrongly) used as common classifications, what about ‘white’ ones? ”
ˇ
mix of multi-ethnic Arabic, Black, and Asian
communities, along with a squillion others that
nobody’s bothered to categorise. All shades of
miserable faces greet you as you slide around
your dirty burnt orange plastic metro seat. But
if you have “Arabic” and “Black” and “Asian”
communities, which are (rightly or wrongly)
used as common classifications, what about
“white” ones? Not everyone is sure that it’s okay
to say that. Is it fair to say that there are areas of
Brussels with more organic food shops, or yoga
workshops? Or bikes with baby seats, manned
by women with cloth shoulder bags full of
expensive free-trade, sugar-free, bio, organic,
meat-free, free-range sandwiches wrapped in
recycled whatever? What about antique shops,
where Brussels’ paler denizens buy moldy coats
from the 40s? More bars and emptier streets?
Halal butchers, wig shops and five euro haircuts
are not a feature of Uccle’s dog poo littered
streets (’whites’ like dogs - their piles of poo
create more work for Belgians than the warring
governments combined). So is Uccle white?
That’s either racist or exactly the opposite.
Is Harlem white? Is it fuck. Alastair Bonnett,
Professor of Social Geography at Newcastle
23
University isn’t buying it. “In Europe, people
are increasingly using these labels, but they
don’t have the same historical meaning they
have in the US. Organic food shops, antiques…
everybody is interested in those things, but it
depends on wealth. We tie them to class, and
in America, which is a really racially divided
country, being middle class and being white
are becoming the same thing. The idea that
we live in racially identifiable places may
work there, sort of, but in Europe, with all its
ethnicities, conflicts and relatively small nonwhite
population, it really doesn’t. We need to
have confidence in our own history.” While
we might laugh at the suggestion that there are
neighbourhoods with more Pilates classes or
adults on skateboards, conversations about
what is “white” tend to spiral speedily into
heated discussions about unpopular dead
Belgian monarchs. A touchy subject, dotted
with disclaimers, like “I’m not racist, but…”
Oh fuck it, there’s a Pilates class somewhere
that needs me. (RK)

24
Jungle fever
Here’s an interesting one you might have missed:
a 2008 study by the US census predicts that
native whites (good one) will be a demographic
minority by 2042. The study refers particularly
to white people of Western European descent -
what you would call Native Americans if you
don’t count any actual Native Americans. So if
you’re fresh off the potato-boat from Krakow,
you’re not quite white enough to make the team.
Don’t be misled though: Caucasians will still
make up the largest individual ethnic group in
the country when compared to Black, Asian
or Hispanic population. Whites only actually
become a minority when you count all other
groups together in one big murky mass of nonwhite
people who are somehow different from
that uniquely unique race of Western European
Caucasoids. Like it’s them against us in some
weird politically correct but sort of latently
racist way. So America is turning all shades
of brown and The Man knows it: considering
that, it’s not a big leap to view the 2008 Obama
nomination for the Democrats as a preliminary
strategic move based primarily on demographic
The papers
ˆ
“ Whites only actually become a minority when you count all other groups together in one big
murky mass of non-white people who are somehow different from that uniquely unique race of
Western European Caucasoids ”
ˇ
projections. Since the passing of the Voting Right
Act in 1965, the Democratic Party has been the
primary stockholder in the voting capital that
is non-white America. Their vote represents a
huge demographic group that – up until ’65 –
had largely been sitting idle on the sideline of
the political game like an all-star forward ready
to win it for the team – if only the coach would
let him play. All it took was for the big wigs to
realize the potential they had been ignoring and
the game could begin. So the fact that Hawaiianborn
Barack Obama II – raised mostly by good
ol’ white folks – is currently the first black(-ish)
president of the US has more to do with strategic
political planning than any alleged ideals
about multiculturalism or racial emancipation.
Regardless of whether or not he is a good politician,
as the son of a Kenyan chief and a white
woman from a middle-class family he does not
represent the typical domestic black community
or its political emancipation. Put simply,
Obama’s more Coming to America than he is
Trading Places. So what does that mean for the
near future? Well, for starters, the Republican
party will hand next year’s election to Obama by
the tried and tested tactic of exclusively providing
candidates who are either void of charisma
or riddled with scandal and blunders. Obama
will get four more years of economic recession
for the GOP to complain about while they whip
an ethnic opponent into shape to step into the
ring come the next round. Who will that be, you
say? I got 5-to-1 on Marco Rubio as Republican
candidate in 2016. This young whippersnapper/
senator is just the ticket for a Republican party in
need of change and diversity. Not to mention he
has an anti-communist back-story that has ’TV
drama’ written all over it: he was born to Cuban
refugees (politically speaking the best kind of
illegal immigrant in the kingdom of Capital).
Rubio, also dubbed the ’prince of the Tea Party,’
made senator before the age 40 thanks to what
looks like a surprisingly atypical case of affirmative
action. Well, maybe not that surprising considering
that Hispanics are the fastest growing
group in the country. Whatever the case, as white
people become an increasingly rare breed in the
US, it will also become increasingly clear that
the entire country is owned by a 10 percentminority.
Because even as Mexicans take your seat
in the Senate, there’s no denying that the core of
the American power structure remains the same
pasty white as the house on 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue – even if it has a black janitor. (RVJ)
© Virassamy

© Virassamy
Wired for
sound
The woman standing in the hallway of the
audiology department of St. Pierre’s Hospital
hears surprisingly well for someone with two
white noise machines plugged into her ears.
She does talk a little loudly, though, so everyone
on the floor knows that there has been a
mix up with her appointment and that she has
been waiting since nine o’clock. She has to get
to work. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she
waits outside the wood-paneled, low-ceilinged
office that looks like a Swedish sauna. It’s full
of testing equipment, and on the walls are
graphics of the inside of the human ear. She
sits at a table filled with small multicoloured
hearing devices that look like a cross between
James Bond spy equipment and Hello Kitty
phone accessories. “This is my fourth month
of treatment, I feel much better now,” she says,
prompted by the tall, bespectacled audiologist
Mr. Philippe Lurquin. “Madame Taillon
had surgery to correct her deafness,” he says.
Neighbourhood
ˆ
“ Tinnitus is a deeply affecting but relatively unknown condition that
produces a constant ringing sound inside the head ”
ˇ
“After the surgery she got tinnitus because
the surgeon hit a nerve.” Tinnitus is a deeply
affecting but relatively unknown condition
that produces a constant ringing sound inside
the head. The patient saw a show on TV
about the Tinnitus Rehabilitation Therapy
team at St. Pierre’s and looked them up. “In
order not to be conscious of a sound,” says
Mr. Lurquin “it must be three things: neutral,
continuous and known. When you drive your
car, there is 100 Db of noise, but you don’t
really hear it. Someone with tinnitus, this
sub-cortical filter doesn’t work.” A technician,
Mr. Lurquin customises white noise hearing
devices for each patient, to mask the non-neutral
sound. Audiologist Maud Real, a sweetfaced
Frenchwoman, explains the condition
and offers counseling, often to patients who
have suffered for a long time before finding
help. Some are deeply disturbed. “Tinnitus
is like phantom limb sensation.” she explains.
“With phantom limb sensation, you don’t
have a hand, so you don’t have any sensation.
But the brain compensates by creating one. It’s
the same in tinnitus. If you have no auditive
information at a certain level, let’s say 650
Hertz, your brain compensates by creating a
25
sound. The main goal is to put the tinnitus out
of the consciousness.” But there is no quick fix.
“It takes about three weeks to a month to get
used to the sound of the white noise, depending
on the emotional state of the patient. They
might be anxious or angry. Some feel it’s not
fair. They think, “Why me?” It’s a big relief
for them to finally talk to someone who knows
the condition.” The team are checking up on
both Madame Taillon’s mental state and the
condition of her white noise gadgets. She takes
the small rose-pink devices from both ears.
They are discreet, even pretty. “Yes,” says Mr.
Lurquin sincerely, “they are beautiful.” Sitting
on the table, the devices are silent, but hold
them anywhere near your head and they emit
the squeaky sound of TV static. Inside the ear,
they are positively loud. “One patient told me
it’s like frying a steak... it makes him want to
eat.” says Ms. Real, and they laugh. All done,
it’s time for Madame Taillon to leave. She puts
the tiny devices back into her ears. “Voila, je
suis branché,” she says, speaking over the constant
static fed directly to her brain, and heads
off to work. (RK)

26
high Drama
Like fake boobs, cocaine is no longer the
exclusive territory of Beverly Hills and other
A-list addresses. But movies will always have a
special place in their heart for a sexy and outlandish
cocaine hypothesis. Heroine, along
with cocaine’s intensely neurotic half-sister
crack, have the facial scabs and broken homes
side of drugs-in-film covered. But cocaine is
showbiz, sex and disco balls. It’s Jimi Hendrix
soundtracks and hitting the “big time” while
girls frolic in your pool. As recently as The
Departed, Jack Nicholson, replete in smoking
jacket, tossed a fistful into the air for his harem
on an opera house balcony. Harems? Opera
houses? Smoking jackets? This is far from the
reality of plumbers and liberal arts students in
Brussels toilets, hoovering ammonia-spiked
chalk dust off grimy ceramic cisterns. It’s not
quite the endless promise of party we get when
we see lip-glossed Anne Hathaway and her
sexy BFFs squashed into a Manhattan cubicle.
But the fantasy is hard to dislodge. Ray Liota
had us considering ditching our day jobs after
watching his dream-like rise in Goodfellas. We
watched True Romance through our fingers
The papers
ˆ
“ Like the use of cigarettes in film noir – there is a mythology around cocaine.
It helps to emphasise the fashionability of a story ”
ˇ
when that guy exploded a ginormous bag of
coke in front of a cop (flash car, prostitute -
check). Jared Leto looked slightly less than
unflappable and a good deal short of glamorous
(but certainly outlandish) as he mapped
Ukraine in Lords of War with a huge pile of
coke. Cocaine’s partner in crime is oodles of
money, often accumulated in a sort-of inspirational
rags to riches story (a favourite in
the coke fantasy tableau), or wasted by posh
New Yorkers sneezing away ten grand’s worth
a la Annie Hall. Those who regularly decamp
to the toilet and come back spouting rubbish
may see themselves in the sexy, bare-foot Uma
Thurman accidentally snorting heroine (I said
God Damn!) in Pulp Fiction, or in the edgy
spectacle of the Boogie Nights boys getting
into a bag through a glass coffee table. Mark
Walhberg, dishwasher turned porn star (rags,
riches) plots life a mile a minute, a life that
is certainly not without risk, but better than
a boring old normal one. Bernardo Camisao,
a Brussels based film maker, believes coke is
often just a prop. “Like the use of cigarettes
in film noir – there is a mythology around
cocaine. It helps to emphasise the fashionability
of a story. Whereas heroin is a drug
with consequences, coke is recreational,
associated with the philosophy of the perfect
image, beauty, wealth, and the stress of a high
powered job, like the yuppies in American
Psycho,” (“Can you keep it down, I’m trying
to do drugs!”) or 99 francs (whose protagonist,
a commercial ad man, gives some to hamsters).
Before all that, the 1930s had Charlie Chaplin
sprinkling coke on his food, giving him a ravenous
appetite (obviously no room for cocaine
in 1930s production budgets). Pandering to
our illusion, most movies spend 90 minutes
showing us how sexy cocaine is, and the final
10 minutes showing how sexy it isn’t (death,
prison, shoot outs, sisters offering themselves
to their brothers...) This cognitive dissonance
is compounded when actors make cool movies
about coke (yay!) and then get caught in grainy
camera phone footage taking the real stuff at
the after party (boo!). We all get a much-owed
apology, and order is restored. (RK)
Visit the wordmagazine.be/ dribbles/highdrama for a video
edit of our favourite coke scenes.
© Raya Rayax

© Xavier Hufkens, Brussels
artist hans
op de Beeck’s
stark realities
Although many artists describe themselves
as ’multi media artists’, few deserve the tag as
much as Brussels based Hans Op de Beeck. Op
de Beeck – who enjoys critical and commercial
success all over the world – is mainly known
for his installations, but expresses himself
through sculpture, drawings, paintings, video,
photographs, short stories. For his video Sea of
Tranquillity (2010) – presented as part of a multi-
media installation shown in Argos last year – he
even composed a jazzy theme song. When Op
de Beeck tells us in his Anderlecht studio that
he is currently working on a black and white animation
movie that will also be part of an opera
in Versailles, it doesn’t even come as a surprise
anymore. Op de Beeck selects the medium in
function of his message. He is not interested in
making a political statement or telling a story,
however, but wants to immerse the viewer in a
specific mood. Location (5) (2004) for example,
Neighbourhood
ˆ
“ Having a coffee at night in a deserted highway restaurant while looking out over the empty highway
is just the same as staring at the sea. It is a kind of contemporary translation of dreaming away ”
ˇ
is an accessible installation of a full-sized, nocturnal
roadside restaurant with a view on an
empty motorway. The entire atmosphere is dark
and greyish, besides the orange halo of the highway’s
light. The work captures a sense of melancholia
though Op de Beeck is quick to emphasise
that he is not a nostalgic. That is also the reason
why he places his work in deliberate contemporary
settings like shopping malls or cruise ships,
while tackling universal and timeless themes:
“Having a coffee at night in a deserted highway
restaurant while looking out over the empty
highway is just the same as staring at the sea. It is
a kind of contemporary translation of dreaming
away.” Op de Beeck’s installations are very
realistically made, yet he does want to highlight
their artificial nature by, for example, playing
with scale and size (as with his long white festive
board created in a scale of 1.5, making you feel
like a six year old) or leaving out colours. His
universe is subdued, often deliberately limited
to white, black or grey. Extension (1) (2007) for
example is an installation of an intensive care unit
with a hospital bed, all in spotless white, while
Extension (2) (2007) shows an office environment
completely rendered in black. Both works
deal with the way technology has become a body
extension, the clinical colours emphasising the
pronounced sense of dehumanisation: “As I pay
so much attention to detail, working with monochromic
colours is a way to make the image more
silent. You get a process of dematerialisation, as
a kind of after image of phantom image.” This
somewhat ghostly disposition is also the case in
Location (6) (2008), a 300m2 installation. It is a
kind of 3D panorama, an observatory of a vast
and misty snow landscape where everything is
so white you almost lose your sense of perception.
The absence of colour is a pursued form
of abstraction to reach a point zero. Leaving out
colour can also be a way to emphasise what is
underneath the surface, as in The Stewarts Have
a Party (2006). In the video, a family is dressed
for a party though the mood is rather more odd
than festive. The fact that the entire setting lacks
colour – even the balloons and cardboard party
are in sterile white - contributes to the overall
feeling of unease. The family members also
behave like life-sized marionettes that are being
manipulated by production assistants. It is a
strong image, unmasking a fake sense of perfection,
while revealing a feeling of emptiness
and alienation the artist manages to perfectly
capture. (SS)
hansopdebeeck.com
27

28 The papers
The smooth
operator
The press office of the Federal Police was
clear: we could only interview him by phone.
He would not give us his real name and photos
were out of the question. I’d have to leave my
number. “Someone” would call to arrange
the interview. “Someone” called, early one
morning a few days later, safely hidden behind
a private number. His voice came down the line
smooth and rich like amber. “I can’t do Tuesday
or Wednesday,” wiping my suggestions off the
table, “but I can do Thursday at four; in person
if you want, at headquarters”. Negotiations had
begun. Deep inside the maze of buildings that
forms the headquarters of Belgium’s Federal
Police force sits a squat two-story block that
houses special ops. In a cramped office on
the second floor, behind one of three cluttered
desks and surrounded by phones and
whiteboards with scribbled cryptic codes, sits
Vincent, his muscular arms folded confidently
behind his head. “Hostage negotiation is part
of the ’observation unit’,” he begins. “There’s
also the ’intervention unit’. But those are the
guys that smash through a window; we’re the
guys that open it,” he grins. To most, the murky
world of hostage negotiators is best embodied
by Denzel Washington in the film The
Negotiator. Vincent too, is limited in what he
can reveal. “There aren’t many hostage negotiators
in Belgium,” telling me the number,
albeit off the record. “But what you see in the
film isn’t far from the truth. In a hostage situation,
the negotiator always has a ’buddy’ that
hears everything, scribbles down extra questions
and helps make sure we don’t miss a thing.
Then there’s the back-up team, of course.” How
many people make up the team and what they
do exactly, he can’t tell me. “This much is sure:
negotiators aren’t cowboys that work outside
the law. Everything is strictly agreed before we
begin.” The things Vincent won’t (or can’t) tell
me I manage to find out via other sources. The
negotiation process, the techniques or the fact
that there are two types of hostage situations:
a “soft crisis situation” in which the perpetrator
is alone, his relationship to the victim is
personal and his state of mind emotional and
impulsive, and the “hard situation” with multiple
perpetrators whose behaviour is rational
and calculated and whose relationship to the
hostages is purely functional. Most of the
hostage situations Vincent has worked on were
’soft’ ones. Situations that begin spontaneously
and in which the most dangerous phase is the
emotional beginning, during which impulsive
violence is most likely to occur. “A husband
ˆ
“ There’s also the ‘intervention unit’. But those are the guys that smash
through a window ; we’re the guys that open it ”
ˇ
that suddenly holds a knife to his wife’s throat,
for instance,” Vincent explains. “In such cases
active listening skills can solve a lot. In essence,
we take on the role of crisis counsellor.” Hard
crisis situations are a completely different ballgame.
Cases such as the kidnapping of Belgian
politician Paul Vanden Boeynants by a criminal
gang that demanded 30 million Belgian
francs, for instance, “These situations are
risky from beginning to end,” explains Vincent.
“Here, perpetrators see victims purely as instruments
to help them get exactly what they want.
They play an ’all-or-nothing’ game.” “The most
important factor in any negotiation, hard or
soft, is the credibility of the negotiator,” says
Vincent, fixing my gaze steadily. “Being caught
telling a lie, no matter how small, can undermine
the entire operation. That’s why we never
promise something we can’t deliver.” “Ensuring
the safety of the victim is our main priority,” he
stresses, and research has indeed shown that
negotiations will lead to casualties in only one
percent of cases, while hostage situations terminated
by physical intervention will result in
injury or death in 70 percent of all cases. But
not all negotiations end well. “Unpredictable
people, someone who has taken drugs for
instance, are hardest to deal with. Like the guy
we found sitting on a golf course at 5am with two
guns to his head. We almost had him convinced
to put down the guns, and then he said ’before
I give you the guns, I just want to do one more
line (of cocaine or speed)’. That’s when I knew:
it’s all over. We ran for him, but we didn’t make
it.” Silence spreads through the room to blanket
his story. Finally, he shrugs. “We’re not therapists.
Once we have defused the situation, we
leave.” “It doesn’t always work out. And even
if it does… We come back, we debrief and we
move on. That’s how we can keep going.” (SC)
© Sarah Eechaut

30
My little
white screen
Frédéric Nicolay should really be crowned the
unofficial mayor of Brussels. A self-effacing,
self-starting oddball, he’s done more than
anyone to give the city its distinctive edge: he’s
reinvigorated entire neighbourhoods through
his bars (Flagey with Belga, Albert with Bar
du Matin and Porte de Hal/Halpoort with
Potemkine), has launched what is probably
its most aspirational beer (Vedett) and, more
recently, has even taken to urban planning in
the shape of his relooking of a public square.
“I grew tired of seeing this dilapidated and derelict
square in front of my offices,” he says when
we meet one windy afternoon in the backstreets
of the Dansaert/Dansaart area, “So approached
the city, asking them for permission to spruce
it up a little.” Taking matters in his own hand,
the genial character planted 40 apple trees,
installed reclaimed tree trunks (recuperated
from an installation on Monts des Arts / De
Kunstberg as public benches, nailed freight
pallets to decrepit walls flanking the square’s
front façade (a technique he first developed
Paper perfect
Stepping into Papers feels a little like delving
into history: shelves crowded with ancient
books, walls covered in vintage drawings and
antiquated objects inhabit the attentively decorated
space, located in a timeworn 18th century
townhouse in Brussels’ Dansaert district.
Imbued of an undeniable museum-like composure,
a quick, first glance around the boutique,
inaugurated in October 2009 with an exhibition
by French illustrator Pierre Le-Tan, makes
it instantly obvious that a true paper passionate
is at work here. “Paper is more than just a
commodity,” owner Jean-Philippe Arnould
says to explain his fascination: “By being used
as a device for creating art and diffusing ideas
it preserves the ensemble of European artistic
works of the last 500 years.” Having worked for
the Louvre, Stockholm’s French embassy or the
Institut Français in Munich, Parisian Arnould
is a veritable culture vulture and no novice to
the art world (he has a special interest in early
fashion drawings, with an impressive selection
of works by influential fashion illustrators such
as Georges Lepape). That being said, Papers is
more than just a place favoured by art collectors.
Indeed, illustrators and painters value it
for its handmade sheets of paper imported from
The papers
for Galerie Catherine Bastide, whose space is
housed in Nicolay’s downtown office complex)
and, most endearing of all, painted a white
rectangle on the graffiti-riddled garage door
in the hope of one day screening movies on
it. The whole project took a couple of days –
at most. “The entire works cost in between
7,000 and 8,000 euros,” he continues, rather
astonishingly. Testament to a new generation
French and Indian manufacturers who still
practise the ancient craft of papermaking: every
sheet is a one-of-a-kind piece characterised by
its rich texture and unique streaks, shades and
structures that an industrially-produced piece
of paper lacks. What is more, Arnould also
puts his passion into practice, creating small
editions of lovely little notebooks bound and
decorated by hand as well as publishing onepagers
on single sheets of paper (usually, of the
of self-empowered community leaders with
an entrepreneurial streak, Nicolay is quick to
downplay his achievement: “I wouldn’t make a
big deal out of it. Anyone could do this. It’s a
visual nod to the neighbourhood, but it doesn’t
make any fundamental changes to it.” (NL)
Frédéric Nicolay is currently working on his latest project,
Flammingo, a bar space opposite the KVS theatre in Brussels.
wafer-thin Leman variety) which the buyer is
free to fold and bind himself. A gallery, artist
supply shop, artisan production facility, independent
publishing imprint and antiquarian
bookstore then. (SS)
Papers
Rue de Flandre 19 Vlaamsesteenweg
1000 Brussels
papers-gallery.com
© Sarah Eechaut
© Pauline Miko

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32 The institution
Society Heritage
Gilbert Elseneer (one-time trainer to King Baudouin I) and his son Gilles – a former world top 100 player – pose on The Royal Tennis Club of
Belgium’s central court together with vintage wooden rackets, some of which were gifts from some of the sport’s most legendary names.
The royal Tennis Club of Belgium
Tucked into an inlet only two minutes from Place Stephanie /
Stefanieplein, Gilbert Elseneer and his wife, have, for 33 years
now, cherished an unsuspected 1950s architectural wonder
dedicated to the game of tennis.
Ever since its inauguration back in 1955, the
Royal Tennis Club of Belgium has lovingly been
kept in the same pristine condition. The three
indoor tennis courts’ surface is still covered with
the same sheets of special Swedish vinyl made
by a company which went bankrupt dozens of
years ago. “That shows how indestructible their
product is! The longevity and smoothness are
amazing. The surface is almost 60 years and is
still impeccable! And best of all it’s easy on the
body as well. This surface is unique in Belgium,”
the visibly proud owner extols.
Equally as unique are the beautiful giant
curved wooden arcades that carry the 13 meter
high roof. “This club was the first large indoor
tennis venue in Belgium. It is also the only indoor
club in Belgium whose size is up to standard
Writer and photographer Jacques Moyersoen
with the international official measures.” With
the central court enjoying a capacity of 1,000
spectators, this little club has, rather astonishingly,
been the theatre of major tennis events,
such as the Davis Cup and the Belgian indoor
championship for over 20 years now. The dedicated
press area is still there to remind us of the
club’s hey-days. “Almost every tennis legend has
exchanged forehands under the mythical central
court: McEnroe, Edberg, Agassi, Lendl,… and
the list goes on. And to witness these glorious
talents from the comfort of the presidential
lodge, you could spot illustrious tennis fans
such as King Leopold III, Baudouin I, and prestigious
families such as the Solvay. The only two
legends which haven’t played here are Sampras
and Borg,” Elseneer concedes.
The Royal Tennis Club of Belgium
was built in 1954 – along five storey’s of
parking spaces below it – by “La Compagnie
Immobilière du Congrès,” which belonged
to “La Banque de Bruxelles” (later known as
BBL and now taken over by ING), under the
impulse of the count Jean-Pierre de Launoit
and the expertise of Philippe Washer, one of
Belgium’s best tennis players at the time. The
later wanted a classy winter club which had
the same feeling as if you were at Wimbledon.
To that end, much of the English venerable
club’s style and philosophy were replicated.
The courts’ only colour is green, and there is
no advertising to be seen, except for the logo
of the club’s now obsolete sponsor, “Donnay.”
The superb lacquered wood and copper

tennis poles were brought in directly from
Wimbledon’s dead stock. The dressing room’s
lockers are inch-exact replicas of those found
in the vicinity of the All England Lawn Tennis
Club. And as an ultimate tribute to the sports
tradition, all club members’ on court attire is
required to be a minimum of 80 percent white.
ˆ
All club members’
on court attire is required
to be a minimum of
80 percent white
ˇ
The sense of being in a “club” in its most
traditional of English meaning is emphasiSed
not only by the home-like feel of the bar, lounge,
and hand-painted dining room – which all
have birds-eye views on the courts – but most
importantly by the warmth and kindness of
the ever-present Elseneer family. “When we
took over the club in 1978 it was basically
losing money. There were three secretaries,
two locker room concierges, several cooks, a
butler, a barman, and two waiters. The fixed
costs were astronomical.” Today, apart from
an external cook, they run the club entirely
by themselves and live in a flat right above it.
Gilbert’s many jobs range from handling the
managerial aspect of the club and dispensing
tennis lessons to his life-long clients to cording
rackets in his little in-house shop with utmost
attention. His wife on the other hand manages
the administration and catering. “It is the only
way to make the club financially viable. We
don’t get paid for our managerial and administrative
activities, our salary comes exclusively
from my tennis lessons and my wife’s employee
status. The benefits from the club are directly
invested in maintaining it in its pristine vintage
state. We’re not rich, but we’re not losing
money either,” he concludes.
Indeed, there is little doubt that money is
only secondary to Elseneer’s passion for the
game of tennis and his club, considering he is
virtually sitting on golden eggs that are only
waiting to be latched. Every year he receives
mind-boggling offers from investors and promoters
to buy-out the highly coveted acres the
club is sitting on. And every year the offers
climb. He is well aware that instead of renting
three huge tennis court’s for 10€/hour a piece,
they could easily be replaced by hundreds of
parking spaces that would rack up the cash
pile. But for Gilbert, it is a different story. The
club is his life and he loves it dearly. He sees
Life
the place as a high-quality working tool in the
center of Brussels. A place where he can live
to its fullest his unwavering passion for tennis
and lead a happy life. There are some things
that money cannot buy. And Gilbert, even
though he could be a millionaire, is as happy
as a man can be.
There is however, a hint of nostalgia when
Gilbert speaks of the club’s glory days. It is
true that not many champions can be spotted
running on the courts anymore, nor are any
important tournaments hosted here. But these
let-downs are the inevitable side effects of
the rapid professionalisation that tennis has
undergone in the last 30 years. The Royal
Tennis Club of Belgium was built at a time
when the country’s best players were in fact
amateurs, the tournaments prize-money small
and sponsorships a barely heard-of concept.
While it also used to be the winter club of
choice for many members of the very select
Royal Leopold Club and many other outdoor
33
tennis clubs, the invention and popularisation
of the pressurised bubble also rendered obsolete
the need for an indoor-only club. That is,
the era, when most clients were regulars and
the club part of their social life, has given way
to a more motley fauna composed of locals and
expats which don’t hang around too long after
their three sets.
But the relative decay of the club compared
to its prestigious past does not curb its owner’s
enthusiasm for it by an inch. Even in the most
extreme weather, the pristine courts stay dry,
and the air pure and healthy. And there’s also
this atmosphere kneaded with tradition and
elegance that today can only be found in classy
golf clubs. And when he’ll retire, Gilbert (who
is now 74 years-old), knows he can count on
his son, Gilles, a former tennis world champion
turned professional trainer, to maintain
the club’s magic and unique soul.
tennisclubdebelgique.be

34 The Word on
Art People Rise and shine
Facing the blank canvas
Calling yourself an artist, musician or writer is all well and
fine whilst the brush strokes, music notes and words flow
abundantly, but what really defines a true creative from the
impostor is his ability to face – and embrace – a white sheet
of paper in the knowledge that, at some point during the day,
that eureka moment will come.
“I don’t think I have a fear of the blank canvas
but I do sometimes find it hard to start a
new piece of work because when the canvas
is blank it could become anything. A blank
canvas is imbued with so much potential and
there’s always the danger of failure, you have
to have the confidence to move forward, work
through any problems and remember if it
all goes wrong, there’s always more canvas.
If I’m blocked then I avoid the canvas or
turn it round to face the wall while i work on
Photographer Sarah Eechaut
Matthew Crasner, 30
Brussels-based artist currently working on a new series of
paintings for an upcoming book.
something else until I’m ready to start painting.
The challenge then is if it doesn’t go the
way you want or it doesn’t look right do you
stick with it and work though the problem or
start again.”
matthewcrasner.com

“(I don’t have a fear of the blank canvas).
I don’t start from pure imagination, but work
with existing or self-made photos as a source
material. My work forms an ongoing story in
which there isn’t a real starting point; every
drawing more or less follows the previous
ones. In a way you could say I am obsessed
with the idea of finding good and appropriate
images. I just keep on looking for images and
think about how the story should develop.
Life
Rinus Van de Velde, 28
artist currently working on a new series of drawings set to
be exhibited in the group show ’Der reiz der belanglosen
Geschichte’ at Galerie Zink in Berlin.
I am mostly completely frozen just after
I have finished a drawing. Then I sit in front
of it for hours and hours, staring and not
touching, figuring out whether it’s a good
drawing or not. I do think the hours between
3 and 5pm are the most difficult ones. I just
want them to be over really quickly.”
galeriezink.de
timvanlaeregallery.com
35

36 The Word on
Manor Grunewald, 26
Ghent-based artist currently working on
a large oil painting for a group show at
the hermitage Museum in amsterdam,
his upcoming solo show at Galerie
Fortlaan 17 as well as his new book,
coming out in February 2012.
“(I don’t fear the blank canvas at all). I have
learned to treat the canvas like a piece of
paper. When you make a silly drawing on
paper and it isn’t good at all you just throw
it away or try to make something out of it.
I work on different paintings at one time, it’s
better to reflect and see how things work and
get influenced by each other. If something
doesn’t work out, I just paint it over or test
something further on the image. In this way
the relationship between you as a painter
and the images is totally different when you
would work on one canvas at a time.”
manorgrunewald.com
Vadim Vosters, 32
artist currently working on a painting for
the hermitage Museum in amsterdam,
a light installation for De Markten in
Brussels and a performance video for an
installation in ukraine.
“When I am unable to start working, I tend to
go for a walk (mostly in the nightime), I take a
book and read, reorganise my studio or take
up older works. The canvas remains blank for
a while, but even then I give it a push. Even
if it’s not completely good, I paint the entire
canvas until it has a first layer of paint over
which I can paint the day after. Then at least
I have an image that I can criticise. Worrying
about a blank canvas or painting is useless.
It is not the moment one stands before a new
canvas that I start thinking about what to
paint; when I order the canvas I already know
what to do with it. There are some canvasses
that I have been working on for years now,
I paint over them, or they are waiting for the
’moment of genius’ to get things right. ”
vadimvosters.be

“I fear the blank canvas because it’s about being
faced with my existence and the infinity of a
white canvas works like a black hole or a black
mirror. Staring at a canvas can seem like an
eternity. This eternity can be a second, or a day,
a week, but you are not aware of it. There is no
Life
Lucas Devriendt, 66
Visual artist currently working on a portrait of a blank canvas
on the wall of his former studio.
notion of time. But once the staring has begun
it’s a part of my life, like taking out the garbage,
doing the dishes, beginning the painting.”
facebook.com/lucas.devriendt
galerievandeweghe.be
37

38 The other Word on
Heritage Nostalgia Retail
White coats
Wearing white coats on the shop floor used to be standard
practice for most retail outfits. Back then, the rule was simple
you see: if you dealt with customers directly, you were
expected to suit up. Presentation is half the battle won right?
Here, we visit four professions who still insist on donning
a white apron during working hours.
Photographer Veerle Frissen
The baker
The oldest bakery in Ghent (its stone ovens
have been firing it up ever since the 17 th
Century), Himschoot still bakes its bread
itself down in its basement. All its employees
wear white aprons for hygiene reasons.

The cheesemonger
A father and son business, Walschot specialises
in ’mandjeskaas’ cheese, a regional
produce protected by the EU. The father
takes care of preparing the cheese, whilst the
son looks after deliveries, accounts and so
forth. They both wear white for hygiene and
functionality.
The pharmacist
Pharmacist Ann Seye wears a white coat for
hygiene, but also because she believes it gives
her a certain credibility and authority. The
white coat says people can trust her expertise
and knowledge.
Life
The poulterer
39
A family-owned business for over 100 years
now, poulterers Diegenant is a husband-andwife
affair, with Mr Diegenant in charge of
prepping the meat whilst Mrs Diegenant
attends to the shop. The couple, both in their
60s, wear white for hygiene and because
the colour is easily recognisable to their
customers.

40 The collection
Nostalgia People
Snowballs
Holidays. Some bring t-shirts back from them. Others return
home with specialty foods or even extinguished animal
species. Marie-Thérèse prefers to box her getaway memories
in these snowballs. All 250 of them.
Photographer pauliNe miKo

Life
41

42
Seeing right through you
With the turmoil besieging boardrooms, governments and stocks markets
the world over showing no sign of abating, calls for greater transparency
increase exponentially with every new sordid revelation of phone-hacking,
corruption-busting, bribe-taking and whatnot. Here, we speak to four
local heroes about their work in making society a more accountable,
and responsible one.
Photographer Sarah Eechaut, with interviews by Rose Kelleher
It’s much easier to raise funds for cancer. Corruption seems
a little bit abstract and theoretical. How do you represent
it? You could show people passing money under the table,
or have a picture of a man with a white collar. Many people
think that this is a problem for developing countries, like
in Africa (or perhaps for Greece), but not for us. When you
want to call the police to report a corruption case, there
is no specific number, you get connected to an operator
saying “I will try to transfer you” and you’re lucky if there
is someone on the other end of the line. It’s not at all user
The business
Society Industry People
The campaigner: Chantal hebette
Chair of Transparency International, Belgium
friendly. People prefer to do nothing when they are afraid,
when they have no confidence in the people in charge.
There is a lot of soft corruption. The people may not be
corrupt but they’re not shocked by evident conflicts of
interests, and though the trend is decreasing, it’s still a type
of sport in Belgium to not pay what you are supposed to pay.

Life
The law enforcer: Johan Denolf
Director of the department for Economics and Financial Crime Division (DJF) of the Belgian Federal Police
In normal fraud, you have an author and a victim. A guy
wants to marry a Filipino girl he finds on the internet.
He is asked for 500 euro for a flight, but the Filipino girl
is only 20 and her mother will need to come as well, so
they need another 500 euro. He goes to the airport with
flowers to wait for his future bride, who never turns up.
That’s normal fraud, the local police would deal with
that. If there were several similar cases, we would make
the link, through collaboration with institutions like
Interpol. But corruption is different. It’s fraud committed
by two parties who both have an interest in keeping silent.
The one who is bribing and the one who is accepting are
both part of the scheme. The biggest challenge is to follow
the money. And to actually get things not only seized, but
also brought back to the Belgian government. Sometimes
we’re too late and the money is already gone. It happens.
43

44 The business
The lawyer: Francois Vinke
Member of the Brussels Bar and Chair of anti Corruption Commission
of the International Chamber of Commerce
Recently, after the wedding of a nephew, I went with my
family to a restaurant. The bill comes and the lady says
“I didn’t split the bill – I have only one VAT receipt.” And
I said “I don’t need it” and she looked at me and said,
“Why don’t you need it?” I know very well that there is not a
trace of professional deductibility. Everywhere there is this
“Everybody does it,” – so if everybody does it, and I’m not
doing it, I will look stupid, or, “The laws are conceived in
this way that it is assumed that everyone will deduct… and
so on.” Corruption is everywhere. It is wrong to think that
white collar crime is related to a religion or culture, industrial
sector, or social origin. Corporate ethics and compliance.
What does it really mean? It’s important not just to
have lists of rules; but to create a cultural attitude of ethics.
I am convinced that law is not only a list of small goals
which say he’s right or she’s wrong… “ubi societas ibi ius”.

I like to find the truth, to dig beneath the surface. I studied
cognitive psychology at university, and worked for two
years as a researcher. The job is basically the same. In
investigative journalism, you also work by hypothesis,
and you try to prove it wrong. Sometimes the lead is not
provided, so you need to do a lot of preliminary research
to see if your hypothesis has a chance. Each time I expose
misconducts by someone, I call them and give them the
opportunity to express their point of view and to challenge
my perception. But sometimes questions are often
Life
The journalist: David Leloup
Freelance investigative reporter
just forwarded to the press department which give me a
ready-made answer. I think people would care more if
the Belgian press exposed more cases of corruption, but
they don’t. I’m not an activist, I am just trying to improve
democracy and democratic principles. But my work might
encourage activists to build up that momentum.
45

46 The encounter
Damir Doma’s quest for meaning
Damir Doma’s rise in the fashion sphere has taken him from
Croatia and Germany to Antwerp and now Paris, where he is
about to open up his first boutique. We sit down with the 30 year
old fashion designer to talk production issues, being an introvert in
Antwerp and choosing white for his latest collection.
In a noisy world governed by pressure and speed,
Damir Doma’s clothes offer a welcome respite
from the highly cyclical fashion world. His garments
whisper -rather than shout- inviting us to
take a step back and reflect upon fashion. The
Croatian-born, Paris-based designer, showed
his first collection in June 2007, gaining serious
interest from key retailers and influential press.
With a focus on draping, soft shapes and generous
volumes, he pushed menswear into a new
territory, moving away from Hedi Slimane’s
razor-sharp silhouette at Dior Homme towards
something more abstract and less angular. He
also put an emphasis on craft, giving his pieces
a tactile and intricate dimension. He’s part of
a generation that rejects sensationalism and
style fads, looking for long-term commitments
People Talent Industry
Writer Philippe Pourhashemi Photographer Lorenzo
instead of short-term gains. In Doma’s work
as a designer, there is no space for vulgarity.
He may only be 30, Doma already has quite a
large business to run, including menswear and
womenswear collections – shown in Paris twice
a year - shoes, bags, accessories, and a diffusion
line called “Silent”. Working on several projects
simultaneously, the designer seems particularly
excited at the prospect of opening his own store
on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris,
a few steps from the Comme des Garçons boutique.
He plans to unveil the new space during
menswear fashion week next January.
Despite an amazing career path – which
would make many of his peers green with
envy – Damir Doma does not cultivate his ego
as much as other designers do. He comes across
as an articulate and fairly introspective man,
aiming at something more meaningful than the
next fashion high. He is deeply analytical and
critical, but you can feel his vulnerable side,
too. He happens to have a special relationship
with Belgium, where he got to learn about his
own boundaries, role and identity “I lived in
Antwerp for a while, working with Raf Simons
and Dirk Schönberger. It was a bit of a soulsearching
time for me,” he explains. “I didn’t
know anything about the city when I arrived.
I didn’t know anyone either and was still in my
early 20s. I found myself on my own for the first
time and was wondering who I was and what
I really wanted from life. I guess it was an existential
thing. Even though I felt lonely at times,
it encouraged me to find some answers. This

process helped me create my own foundation in
terms of design and direction.” There’s a sense
that Doma wants to protect himself, hiding his
sensitivity under cosy layers. His clothes are
like an embrace from an old friend, giving you
comfort, warmth and happiness.
ˆ
I chose white, because it
felt like a new beginning.
It was like holding a blank
piece of paper in my hand,
something very pure and
untouched
ˇ
During his last womenswear show back in
September, Doma decided to open with a series
of stunning white outfits, giving a clean and fresh
start to his collection: “I chose white, because it
felt like a new beginning. It was like holding a
blank piece of paper in my hand, something very
pure and untouched. White stands for spirituality,
which is important in my work. I wanted to
bring much more sensuality and femininity into
the collection. People often acknowledge me as a
menswear designer, but I feel the message within
my womenswear shows has become clearer and
sharper each year. I’ve had to learn the design language
to express what I wanted to say.” There’s an
organic feel to his clothes, which refer to natural
elements in a subtle way. Shades of stone, plaster,
marble and sand can be found in his shows, as
well as occasional dashes of strong colour. In
many ways, Damir Doma’s aesthetic refers to the
early 80s and the infamous Japanese wave, when
designers like Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto
and Rei Kawakubo changed the face of Western
fashion. Doma’s forte is finding the right balance
between all these elements and keeping in mind
the needs of his clients “As a designer, I have to
keep on pushing myself while remaining true to
my essence. Another thing I realised working
with Belgian designers is that you always have to
place clothes within a much broader context. It’s
totally different from – let’s say – the way Italian
designers work. Italian fashion is much more
about creating a certain look than addressing the
reasons why it should exist. I think the Belgians
gave depth and meaning to the fashion world,
which was surely lacking when their careers took
off. Still, one should never forget that fashion is
not art. It’s just that the creative process getting
you to a collection can be quite similar to what is
experienced by an artist when he or she tries to
come up with a new piece.”
Style
Needless to say, fashion stardom comes
with its fair amount of strain. And, even though
Doma is clearly not the excessive type prone to
give in to life’s every indulgence, he still has to
deal with the pace of the industry and the stress
it creates, “People always emphasise the shows,
but the most important thing for me is how you
get there. That’s the fascinating part. There’s
more and more to be done at the company each
year. I get more help now, but I also have to
be able to delegate, which is not as simple as
people imagine it to be. I guess it’s a challenge
right now. I still draw everything myself and
am not at that point where I feel I don’t need
to have that level of control. It’s different with
menswear, because I’m getting more and more
to this point. With the womenswear line, I’m
not there yet.” There’s something touching
about Doma’s humility and his willingness to
be sincere, not pretending to be something he
clearly isn’t. You get to sense the person behind
the brand, echoing the way his models look on
the catwalk, appearing more like individuals
than soulless clothes hangers. Despite growing
up as a kid amongst patterns and samples
within his mother’s atelier – and being backed
by Paper Rain, a powerful and international
fashion group – he wants to take the time to
evolve, leaving enough room for experimentation
and research “I turned 30 this year and
didn’t feel any difference. I guess each one of us
has milestones in life. There’s always this idea
that certain things have to be done by a certain
age. I don’t know if this applies to how I live my
life. I guess my work is not just about creating
collections, but also finding a language that can
be understood globally. I’m aware that finding
this is challenging and goes quite deep, but I’m
very excited about it. I feel so grateful I even get
the chance to do it. Not many people do.”
47
Every designer has to make tough decisions,
from the complete beginner to the confirmed
talent, which is something Damir Doma is
more than aware of. “When we started with the
menswear, we used to have our production in
Belgium, but ended up switching to Italian manufacturers.
Belgian companies were very strong
when it came to producing women’s clothes, but
finding strong partners for menswear was much
more complicated. There were also issues with
pricing and quality. We got a better package in
Italy. The whole production was moved there
eventually, apart from Silent, which is mainly
made in Portugal.” Besides some unavoidable
commercial demands, it’s obvious that Damir
Doma loves his work. In fact, he takes fashion
more seriously than most of us do: “For me,
fashion is always a very direct reflection of the
times we’re going through. That’s why people
should never underestimate it. It’s a confusing
period in general, not just in fashion.” He
seems to find satisfaction in dealing with several
tasks at the same time, rejecting the notion that a
single focus is necessarily more efficient “People
always seem to worry that working on different
things simultaneously decreases your creativity,
but this is not something I agree with. I tend to
be the opposite as I’m quite comfortable going
from one project to another. If you’re a designer
working on just one collection, you get this huge
sense of loss after your show and there’s nothing
else to hang on to. Coming back after that tends
to be much harder. This is a very good moment
for me. You just need to take a few days off when
your body tells you to.”
damirdoma.com
Visit thewordmagazine.be/radar/damirdomas for a
slideshow of Damir’s latest collection.

48 The insider
Retail Heritage Vintage Consume
The king of
clean
Eddy Beaurain has been fighting dirt for more
than 30 years. Pressing n° 1, the dry cleaning
business he set up in 1979, is a trustworthy
address, enviably located on Rue Antoine
Dansaertstraat, Brussels’ fashion epicentre.
A former civil servant, Beaurain got bored
with red tape, office hours and paperwork.
He wanted to be in touch with people and
thought dry cleaning could do the trick.
“When I was a kid, I lived in the neighbourhood
and my parents used to bring their
clothes here. They were sent elsewhere for
cleaning and they’d come back to collect
them after a few days. When I took over from
the previous owner, I set up a workshop at
the back, allowing us to do everything on the
spot. We got regular business fairly quickly,
enabling me to hire more staff.” There’s something
real and charismatic about Beaurain.
Besides his affable manner and openness, he
comes across as a sincere and hard-working
guy. The fact that he’s been on Rue Antoine
Dansaertstraat for so long gives him a unique
insight into the life of the street “It changed
so much here,” he explains. “I’m 57 now and
remember how it was. There were mainly
craftsmen. Some were making watches, others
were running small ateliers for leather goods
and crocodile bracelets. Stijl was one of the
first designer boutiques to open in 1984. Sonja
Noël (owner of Stijl and Halelujah) is still a
client of mine. Theatre companies – such as
La Monnaie / De Munt – began working with
me, too. I’ve always dealt with creative people
and they are very loyal clients.” Never defeated
when it comes to stains, he rarely refuses to
clean clothes. He doesn’t seem to object to the
obsessive habits of some of his clients either
I always find solutions
when it comes to dirt.
In dry-cleaning, milk
and biro are the biggest
challenges
ˆ
ˇ
“I always find solutions when it comes to dirt.
In dry-cleaning, milk and biro are the biggest
challenges. Some folks complain constantly,
but they keep on coming back. Others bring
things that don’t even need cleaned. We have
a guy who drops a bag of white underwear
every week. It’s always the same brand and
the same amount of briefs. Another elderly
man has one black shirt he gets cleaned on a
regular basis. The week after, he comes back
with the same shirt and a silk white tie. It’s like
a ritual and has been going on for years. When
the shirt starts falling apart, he has the same
one made at a tailor’s he knows.” As clothing
deals with privacy and intimacy, clients start
opening up after a while, becoming friends
with Beaurain and his staff. “People will talk
about personal matters behind the counter.
They feel we can be trusted and that we listen
to them. Clients become friends after a while.”
Beaurain has touching stories about some of
them, “I became friendly with this guy who
came in every Saturday. He was a joyful person
and we had great chats. Then he disappeared
for six months and I wondered where he was.
One day, I got a call from him, telling me he
was at Saint-Jean / Sint-Jan clinic and really ill.
He wanted to see me the next day and I went
there. We never talked about his illness, but
I think it was AIDS. Although it hurt to see him
weak and diminished, I had to be there for him.
He died a few days after my visit.” Ironically,
Beaurain was approached by a fashion brand
three years ago and has finally decided to sell
his shop. He will close in December this year,
starting a new chapter in his life. The stains may
be long gone, but Beaurain’s indelible stain on
the neighbourhood won’t be washed away any
time soon. (Farewell Eddy. Brussels’ fashion
strip won’t be the same without you.) (PP)
Visit thewordmagazine.be/wonders/kingofclean for a full
gallery of Pressing N°1’s downtown shop.
© Pauline Miko

50 The look
Heritage Design
rue Blanche
To most, Rue Blanche is known as a purveyor of softness
for everyday women – not too loud, but not too quiet either.
To fashion insiders though, the Brussels-based brand is
better known for its twice-yearly catalogue. We zoom in on
the 25-year-old look book, digging deep into its archive to
discover that pretty much the entire cream of the crop of
Belgian fashion and graphic design has, at some point or the
other, had a hand in its making.
Spring / Summer 1990, shot by François Matthys
Photographer Pauline Miko
Autumn / Winter 1998, featuring a fresh-faced Anne-Catherine Lacroix Spring / Summer 2003, shot by Andrea Lennon

Spring / Summer 1998, shot by Andrea Lennon Spring / Summer 1998, shot by Serge Leblon with art direction and design by Base
Spring / Summer 1998, shot by Serge Leblon
Spring / Summer 2005, with art direction and design by Flore Van Ryn
Style
51

52
The showstoppers
Fashion Beauty Footwear Consume
What we’ve got in store for you
Covering our bases – our speciality here at Word HQ.
And, true to form, we’ve left no stones unturned in our search
for consumerist nirvana in the run up to the festive season
shopping spree, with close to every industry of interest to
us represented in one shape or form. Beauty? Check. Bags?
Check. Clothes for him and for her? Check. Jewellery? Check.
Stationary? Check? See, we got it all covered.
01.
cotton candy
New Delhi-based Rajasthani fashion
designer Rajesh Pratap Singh’s collections sit
somewhere in between historical reference
and modern relevance. Enjoying close
relationships with traditional Indian mills,
what makes Pratap’s creations unique is the
way he balances textile experimentation (he’s
big on cotton and weaves it to magnificent
effect) with restrained good taste. He’s
daring, even grand at times, but in a subtle
manner. Take this 100 percent organic cotton
shirt handmade in India. It’s fun, liberating
and exhilarating but in an understated way.
The kind of shirt that’ll get you noticed for its
details. (NL)
Rajesh Pratap Singh’s handmade organic cotton shirt
(¤ 250,00).
Available from Haleluja (Brussels).
pratap.ws

03.
pack it in
Count on Louis Vuitton to continuously
reinvent itself. With Marc Jacobs at the helm
of the prestigious house, Vuitton bags have
become objects of intense desire. Each season,
the American designer comes up with new
ways to revisit the ubiquitous monogram. With
the Damier Infini line and its strong menswear
shapes, the emphasis is on style and functionality
rather than branding. White can be
tacky, but the soft calf leather and chequered
detail make this duffel bag the perfect travel
companion. Just don’t let the missus get her
hands on it. (PP)
Louis Vuitton Duffel Bag (¤ 1,700).
Available from Louis Vuitton (Brussels and Antwerp).
louisvuitton.com
Style
02.
body building
If jetting off to sunnier shores is not always an
option, that doesn’t mean your skin doesn’t
deserve the same amount of pampering it
usually does. And, with its unique blend of
ingredients including HEPES – a sci-fi sounding
buffering agent – Lancome’s Nutrix Royal
Body Butter comes second to none when moisturising
your skin has become as necessary to
your well-being as drinking your litre of water
a day. The cream is soothing and its repairing
effects are instantly visible – making it all the
more worthwhile. (PP)
Lancôme Nutrix Royal Body Butter 200ml (¤ 41,67).
Available nationwide at Ici Paris XL and Planet Parfum.
lancome.com
53

54 The showstoppers
05.
Knit hits
Chauncey needs no introduction to these
pages, their cashmere and knitwear collections
having won our hearts and minds
over a long time ago. And the hits just keep
on coming from the Brussels-based French
couple, this time in the shape of its longsleeved
cables knitted jumper full of details.
There’s the chunky twisted knitted patterns
that lace the entire jumper, the body-perfect
straight fit as well as the small V neck detail
at the centre of the ribbed collar (on the men’s
version only). Made in Mongolia, home to
the finest cashmere in the world, don’t be
surprised if this revisited classic becomes a
regular on your winter clothes rack. (NL)
Chauncey white crew neck (¤ 329).
Available from chaunceystore.com
04.
it’s a bird, it’s a plane? No, it’s a pen
Mixing high and low has always been one of
Maison Martin Margiela’s signature contributions
to the fashion world. Their Ligne 13
– dedicated to objects and publications - has a
poetic and timeless feel to it, one which escapes
seasonal constraints to focus instead on surrealistic
items which are given the MMM cachet.
It references the past, yes, but without taking
itself too seriously. Like its ostrich feather pen.
It’s slightly on the outlandish side, and elicits
the odd incredulous look or two at first. Then
it suddenly reminds you you haven’t received
a handwritten letter in yonks, and then and
there an ostrich-feathered pen might just be the
thing you need to get you to put pen to paper
again. (PP)
Maison Martin Margiela Ostrich Feather Ball Point Pen (¤ 45).
Available from Maison Martin Margiela (Brussels).
maisonmartinmargiela.com

07.
Super furry animals
It doesn’t get more seasonal than wearing
goatskin on your feet. Mou footwear has just
recently landed on our Belgian shores this
season, bringing some much-needed London
cool to our dreary streets. Using natural
leathers and fibres – as well as long-lasting
soles and finishing – these cosy boots are
ideal for skiing holidays (not too sporty, not
too flashy – just right) as well a grisly citybound
weekends (they’re sturdy enough to
deal with cobblestones and the odd pothole
or two). Truth is, they’re so furry and soft you
might even end up cuddling up to them as
you do your teddy. We promise we won’t tell
anyone. (PP)
Mou goatskin cowboy boots 33cm (¤ 369).
Available from Down Town (Ghent)
and Juliette Verlaine (Liège / Luik).
mou-online.com
Style
06.
cookie crumble
We’re still at the cute and cuddly phase when
it comes to jewellery. Put it this way, we like
the ostentatious and outlandish, yes, but
what really gets us going is the feeling left by
a piece, its emotional appeal if you will. And,
with its white collection, Ghent-based design
practice Soki hits all the right spots. Made up
of six different designs (marble, bean, house,
print, stamp and, our favourite, cookie),
the collection includes rings, earrings and
pendants and softly navigates the intricacies
of jewellery-making through its unpretentious
approach and sweet-touched delivery.
The kind of necklace you’d all too willingly
take a bite out of. (NL)
Soki Off White collection (From ¤ 20 to ¤ 80).
Available from Rewind (Ghent) and Beyond Fashion
(Antwerp).
soki.be
55
Go to page 96 for full stockist information.

56 The nod
Play People Heritage
The school of white socks
Taking our fascination with social style statements to new
heights (well, lows really), we zoom in on one of our all-time
favourite fashion faux pas: white socks. And we’re not talking
the knee-high type recently made popular again by a certain
skateboarding black goblin – although there’s a bit of that too.
No, no, no. We’re talking white socks and Adidas track pants.
White socks with open top Diadora flip-flops. White socks
with a black suit and a black pair of shoes. Classic.
Photographer Ulrike Biets

Style
57

58
The fashion Word
Fashion Consume Photography
runaway bride
Unsure and unsettled, the bride to be makes a last ditched
attempt at freedom, escaping a life of guaranteed sorrow and
setbacks for brighter pastures. And, with the maid of honour
by her side, she might just have found her rebound.
Photographer Sébastien Bonin

Style
Fur coat Dries Van Noten, Vest Maison Martin Margiela, Hat Maison Michel
59

Left: Top Ingrid Vlasov, Skirt John Galliano, Veil Christophe Coppens, Glasses Prada, Boots Haider Ackermann
Right: Wool dress Haider Ackermann, Hat Elvis Pompilio, Glasses Bijules, White gold and pearl brooch Wouters & Hendrix, Sneakers D&G

Jacket Dolce & Gabbana, White gold earrings Wouters & Hendrix, Earpiece Bijules

Cotton blouse Nicolas Andreas Taralis, Silk bra Carine Gilson, Silver brooch Mouton Collet

Tweed dress Chanel, Bomber jacket Dolce & Gabbana

64 The fashion Word
Left: Dress Ingrid Vlasov, Briefs Carine Gilson, Bracelet Pamela Love, Skirt D&G (worn as headpiece)
Right: Coat Jean Paul Knott, Headpiece Walter Lecompte, Ring Bijules

Style
Photographer
Sébastien Bonin
Photographer’s assistant
Ludo Anton
Hair & make up
Inge De Vos
Models
Anne-Roos
@ modelsbykeen
&
Femke
@ Dominiquemodels
With thanks to Pauline Miko
Go to page 96 for full stockist information.
Left: Cardigan Indress, Dress Agnes B, Short angora dress Rochas, Stole Undercover, Bag Marni, Sandals Converse
Right: Top, jacket and skirt Marni, Tights Wolford, Bag Issey Miyake, Headpiece Christophe Coppens
65

66 The columns
Talent Rise and shine
White russia
White Russia’s debut LP, O Jerusalem, is as haunting and
spooky as it is compelling. The band, a two-piece from
South London, navigates through a range of genres to
create rich layers of sonic reverberations that hit you out
of nowhere. Singer/songwriter Marina Elderton’s piercing
voice and rebel-rousing lyrics, combined with producer
Benjamin Bufton’s powerful, knock-out style productions
make for a fresh and revolutionary sound. We caught up
with Marina for a quick Skype link up to talk apathetic
bands and wanting to be Axl Rose.
Interview Nicholas Lewis

Hi there, where are you right now?
I am in Kingston, London, meeting up
with Lee Mangan, who’s our video director,
and we’re trying to sort out the cover for the
album, which is basically going to be stills from
our videos.
Have you guys started doing a lot of promos
and performing live shows for the new album?
Yeah we basically started doing gigs about
May last year for it, mainly around Hoxton in
London and in 93 Feet East. Its been really
great actually because its given me an opportunity
to play some places that I’ve always wanted
to play you know, and it’s nice having something
which you feel will make some statement
of some kind, make more of an impact than just
some kind of apathetic band that can’t even be
bothered to make an effort. There are quite a
few of them around.
When and where was the album recorded?
We recorded it from about 2008 to 2010
in Ben’s studio, in his house in London.
What was the vibe during the recording
sessions?
It was cool. The way it started was with one
song really, Charmless State. I’d been playing
music for a while and knew of Ben because I’d
met him through friends. I recorded an acoustic
demo of the song and Ben heard it and, you know,
liked it and so I came in to his studio and I just put
down my acoustic version just using guitar, then
I sung over it, and then he just built it up. He had
a very strong vision which was that he wanted it
to be dark and industrial. For me it involved a lot
of trust in a way because I was always quite suspicious
of things that were too programmed but he
played it back to me and I was blown away and it
kind of went from there basically.
When did you actually start calling yourself
White Russia?
Well at that point we never actually said
‘OK we’re in a band, this is what it is’, it was
more of an intrigue about this song, and then
it was quite a natural process. There was one
point when we probably had three songs and
we were like ‘OK, what it this?’ Then we sat
down early 2009 and called it White Russia
and decided to do a whole album.
Why White Russia?
I was looking at a really old, beautiful map
and was scanning the east European section and
saw ’White Russia’ written on the map and I was
so surprised that I’d never seen it before. It just
seemed to go with the music really, that was it.
A lot of your songs and lyrics, and even your
track names, are quite powerful. They could
Music
sometimes be seen as a call to arms to a generation
of jilted people.
Yeah, I know what you mean. And I don’t
want it to be coming across as a patronising
preacher going around saying ‘oh you all got it
wrong,’ but for me, music is the most powerful
platform in the sense that it is the only form of
art that is completely intangible, its not physical,
people receive it in the air, yet it has such a physical
force on you that for me that’s a responsibility.
People need to be shaken out of the normality
that is being forced upon us, that actually to
me is very unnatural. I think we do live in quite
dark times, there’s a kind of menacing element to
society, the fabrication of society that we need to
challenge, and question, and at least look into.
Menace. That’s the word I was looking for.
There’s a sense of intense menace in your
music. One of the things I couldn’t help think
of was that your music would be perfect as a
backdrop to the recent London riots…
The riots were quite invigorating.
Everyone was scared shitless. It was hitting
places nobody thought possible. Ealing is the
leafiest, wealthiest suburb and buses were on
fire there, you know? People’s houses were
getting broken into too. It was a sudden shock
to the system…And to be honest, I think that
can be a healthy thing in the sense that it makes
people debate, question and wonder what this
was about. I think the truth of those riots is that
it shows you that the society we’ve structured
doesn’t really fulfil human happiness at all.
One of the words that was used to describe
your sound was hazy. You don’t sound
hazy to me…
That’s probably more of Ben’s influence.
He probably wants to raise more questions
that answers. Ben likes the idea of something
really quick and extreme that then disappears.
Something that sounds like the beginning of
something epic but then it doesn’t come. He
likes to create this sense of ambiguity that
makes you feel quite unsure because you don’t
know what to expect. It kind of puts you on
edge which in a way makes you more alive.
In terms of style, and maybe this is more a
question for Ben, the music kind of touches
upon everything. There’s hip hop, there’s
dub step, a little bit of electronica, there’s
folk, chill wave. How would you describe
your music if you had to pigeonhole it?
Yeah, it can be quite hard actually.
I suppose alternative electronic is what we’ve
been calling it. But obviously there are other
elements in it and I know that Ben’s definitely
coming from quite a few different strands. He’s
got this really amazing way of drawing all these
things together in a way that makes sense.
67
What music scenes or tribes did you belong
to growing up?
Oh very strong tribes. In weird ways Ben
and I are complete opposites, we have completely
different backgrounds. For me, my
baptism as far as music began with one close
best friend when I was 13-14. We started listening
to Led Zepellin, The Doors, Guns N’ Roses
and we were obsessed with them, we wanted to
be them. I wanted to be Axl Rose, like a man
you know. We disowned our femininity and we
started playing music together and it was brilliant
because it gave us an identity. It gave us the
confidence to fucking rebel I guess. People used
to take a piss out of us, saying, ‘Oh you listen
to grandpa music’ but for me it was amazing
because it was the beginning of me playing
music. Then slowly but surely I opened my
mind to newer things. The 60s, the 70s, the 80s.
The Cure, The Smiths, obviously amazing. The
90s, Nirvana, Faith No More. It was mainly
alternative and rock for me. Then I went into
Depeche Mode, weirder stuff. Bonnie Prince
Billy and just more mind-wrapping stuff, that
was less literal, less of an image-based thing
and more about ideas. And then Ben’s obviously
introduced me to things like Yazoo, a lot
of more electronic stuff.
Do you guys have any side projects or is
White Russia your main thing?
Actually I’m working on something new
with one of my friends whose playing bass
and I’m playing guitar. It’s called The Russian
Orthodox Wedding. That’s the working title
so far. We recorded our song on a reel-to-reel
analogue recorder all in one day. I can’t play
guitar very well, she had just learned the bass,
so there’s a complete naivety to it. It reeks of all
the mistakes. It’s the bare bones but I’m quite
excited about it. And Ben’s always working
on different stuff. He produces stuff for a
band called Steranko who are a punk bank in
London who Lee Mangan, the video director,
is the lead singer of. They’re a fucking amazing
band, truly amazing live. Very very rare band.
This is maybe a classic one, but what are you
listening to at the moment?
You know the band Girls?
Yeah we’re interviewing them for this same
edition…
Oh cool. Their second album is fucking
amazing. It’s so fucking profound. It’s like old
school music again. You know an organ, and
the song is allowed to develop. I love it.
White Russia’s debut album O Jerusalem is out on L’Agenda
Records on 28th November.
myspace.com/whiterussiamusic

68 The columns
Talent Rise and shine
White Car
White Car makes dark
and broody industrial
house music with a
menacing streak. The
band’s productions
– Vortex funk meets
darkroom boogie – are
cold, calculated and
composed. What you
hear is what you get. And
what you hear is hard.
We skype-call White
Car head honcho Elon
Katz to talk about his
slew of side projects,
Chinese underground
music and painting a
house white.
Interview Nicholas Lewis
Your love and use of analogue equipment
is well-documented…
When I first discovered electronic music
and started to play with it, I was using computers
for the first five years and then I started
to buy real analogue hardware instruments,
real synths, real drum machines and so on.
It’s moved from the computer to outside the
computer. I still use computers to record and to
do all the editing. My music is still very much
written on a computer but the sound doesn’t
come from a computer at all.
You sent me some of your most recent
releases. Can you explain what the difference
might be between you recording
as White Car, you recording as Aguire,
and you recording as Streetwalker, your
project with Beau Wanzer?
Aguirre is kind of an earlier project, that
I started in 2005 with a buddy of mine I went
to high school with. We really got interested
in a lot of electronic music together, listening
to a lot of Warp and Planet Mu records, stuff
© Zara Katz

like that. Post-rave, UK stuff. White Car is a
solo recording project that is based around
taking these genres of electronic dance music
that are very specific to the context of where
they came from, and then morphing it into my
songwriting and bringing these movements of
electronic dance music closer to singer-songwriter
territory. It’s not club music, but it very
much uses all the ideas from past eras of club
music to kind of start its foundation. And then
my solo recordings is experimental electronic
music, much more abstract and working with
ideas of texture and sound. White Car is more
of a cultural party fun project whereas my solo
stuff is made with modular synthesisers so far
so it’s much more about picking up sounds and
then trying to make them happen.
In a very broad sense, your music tilts
towards the dark side, which might seem odd
for someone who comes from California…
There’s a lot of darkness in California.
There’s no short answer really. It’s not a personal
extension of ’my’ darkness. I think that
the darkness you hear in the music is the story
that it tells, more than who I am.
What story does it tell then?
It’s the story of humanity, human beings.
Ignorance, oppression. America is kind of in a
state right now where people are worried. It’s not
a full-on depression, but there’s definitely a sense
of darkness in the country right now with being
at war for 10 years and the economy going under.
Some people live in darkness and some people
in light. I think that the stories I’m drawn to in
terms of those I want to tell as a songwriter tend
to be stories about darkness because it’s hard to
learn from happiness. A lot of people say you
learn more from your mistakes, and this is kind
of the same thing. You profit more from being
with darkness. I’m not depressed, but I’m introverted
and I do have a pessimistic look. I don’t
really look at people and have faith in them,
and I think that comes out in my music. But I
wouldn’t say dark, it’s such an overused word. It’s
more paranoid, multi-faceted in its darkness. In
the same way a Cronenberg or a Lynch movie is
dark - you’re more intrigued by its darkness than
turned off by it. There’s humour to it. And I think
darkness is funny. My sense of humour is very
black and very dark and I think that bands that
take themselves very seriously in how depressed
and how dark they are? That to me is fun…
Coming back to White Car, when did you
start recording as a unit? The first songs,
the first EPs….
The first release was the White Car EP
that came out in February 2010 on Rainbow
Body Records, a Chicago label run by a guy
called Chris Sloan and I had met the guys from
Music
the band Gatekeeper, and we had really connected.
I started hanging out with them more,
playing with their gear, they were playing me a
lot of music I hadn’t heard before. I got really
inspired by a lot of it. And that was how White
Car came about. We played our first show in
June 2009, together with Gatekeeper.
ˆ
White Car is […] based
around taking these genres
of electronic dance music
that are very specific to the
context of where they came
from […] bringing these
movements of electronic
dance music closer to
singer-songwriter territory
ˇ
You write most of the band’s songs right?
I do yes. Orion (the other half of White
Car) helps with the visual side of things, he plays
electronic percussions. He is an editor, which is
more helpful than anything else at this point in
time with where we’re at with music-making.
I’d say that in the last 10 years the most innovative
instrument has been laptops and computers
and being able to make better recordings
in your house. Everyone’s a solo artist now, no
one’s in a band anymore. That’s why there’s so
much music now. But everyone’s recording themselves
and half these people don’t have anyone
in there helping them make their music. That’s
what Orion does, he’s an editor. He comes in and
listens to it and says “I like this part, I don’t like
this part, this makes me think of this, this makes
me think of that. We kind of understand each
other’s language so well that I kind of understand
where he’s coming from with all these ideas.
You’re working on your new LP at the
moment. It was supposed to be out in August
right?
It was supposed to be out in September.
It’s gone through a few different versions, it’s
a work-in-progress. Working on the music by
myself mostly, there’s a sense of isolation to it.
It’s hard to gage when its done. But right now,
the release is set for late February 2012.
How important do you think Chicago’s
past underground scene was in shaping
your current sound?
I don’t think that this music is only discoverable
in Chicago, but being there, being in
proximity to it and being in proximity to people
who hold it really close to them made me revere
it more. There are a lot of people there who are
really interested in the history of Chicago and
Chicago music and are interested in making
sure that people hear a lot of the older records.
So, just in terms of a physical thing, you can go
and find good Chicago house records in almost
any record stores, which may not be the case
somewhere like California or Ohio.
Can you describe your recording space? Is
it mad scientist type lab or clean-cut minimalist
studio?
Oh I’m pretty organised. But, you know,
there are a few cables flying around. I’m at a
stage where I’ve been using a lot of the same
stuff for three years now, and I’m trying to
switch it out. But I’m in the process of also being
broke, so I’m trying to figure out how to build a
better studio for nothing. But it’s pretty clean:
three or four keyboards, synthesisers, a couple
of drum machines, some processors, a computer
and some racks. It’s like, you know, a small
room’s worth.
What’s behind the name White Car?
It’s literally a reference from a Cabaret
Voltaire song. There’s a song on the last record
Code called White Car. The song is about
wealth and extravagance and the darkness of
having money, which has always been interesting
to me. I guess I resonated with that song.
And the image of a white car always fascinated
me, there was some mystery to it, some
pre-conceived notions about it. The image of
a white car is very creepy to most people, it’s
always associated to kidnapping, or human
trafficking. Plus you have to have money to
keep it clean…
If you were guest editing our white album’s
music special which icon would you want
to interview?
There’s a good Chinese band called White.
I would look into them because it’s very interesting
to think of China’s underground scene.
I think they’re from Beijing or Hong Kong.
Last one: what’s your plan tomorrow?
I have to paint a house. White….
White Car’s forthcoming album ’Everyday Grace’ is out on
Hippos in Tanks in February 2012.
white-car.net
69

70 Jane’s addiction
Nostalgia
White labels
For the white album I thought I’d tell you a
bit more about DJ culture. DJ culture before
the mp3 was invented and, more specifically,
when white labels were the cachet of recognition
record store clerks bestowed upon you.
When I started buying records, around 1990,
my favourite record stores were USA Import in
Antwerp, Music Man in Gent and for second
hand stuff I always went to Wally’s Groove
World - Koenie’s shop that was squeezed in the
basement of USA Import. Later on, Dr Vinyl
opened shop in Brussels so I didn’t need to
drive to Antwerp anymore, even though it was
always good to visit other stores because each
shop had its own selection. The only way to get
some good music at the time was by religiously
visiting those stores every week. On Thursdays
was when most new records came in and you
had to be quick to get them because there often
weren’t many copies. So, best trick was to be
nice with the person selling the records: Smos
at USA, Geert at Dr Vinyl, Benoulie & Biens
at Music Man and Koenie at Wally’s Groove
World. And, since I was one of the only girls
mixing at the time, they always kept some nice
copies for me. The retailers had a lot of power
in those days. They listened to all the records
that came in and it was obvious to them which
ones would go on to become hits. Everything
was ordered in small quantities and they kept
the good records for themselves or their close
friends. The idea being that people who bought
the records could play them for a while before
they hit the dance floors and radio waves.
When you were really lucky though, you’d
stumble upon a white label. White labels are
completely white records. They are promotional
copies (not for sale!) although we were
quite happy to buy them. They were records
that the record companies sent to stores to
promote a song that hadn’t yet been released,
to sound the market out a little. So, if you were
lucky enough to have purchased a good white
label record, it was highly probable that you’d
be the only one playing it for months before
it got released. And, as a DJ, what better way
to stand out from the pack than to be spinning
some tunes that nobody else could play?
Every DJ had his own style and his own hits,
songs that everybody could sing along to
but that nobody knew the exact name of the
producer or the label. That’s also the reason
why a lot of DJs used special (white) stickers
to cover the etiquette. Some of the notorious
white labels that were released six months or
even a year before their official release were
Felix’s Don’t you want me, T99’s Anastasia,
Cameo’s Money and Nightcrawlers’ Push the
feeling on. All of them went on to become very
big hits. (Lady Jane)
Thanks to Geert from Dr Vinyl (Brussels).
Jane’s next Black Out party will be taking place on
10th December at Mr. Wong’s, with New York’s Jessica 6 and
Istanbul’s Baris K manning the decks.
© Raya Rayax

72 The Word with
Talent We love Current
I just saw the video for your single Honey
Bunny. I think you guys posted it on your
Facebook page two days ago. It got quite a
good response. Are you happy with it?
Yeah, I think so, yeah I like it. Well you know,
it’s not a big deal for me. It’s more for the fans.
This interview we’re doing is going to run
in our November edition and it’s going to
be themed “the white album”. Hum now,
I read in an interview of yours that you have
some sort of fetish for white sneakers…
Ha ha!
Girls
Girls’ ascension to indie pop supremacy hasn’t really taken anyone by
surprise. The San Francisco band’s debut album, Album, had already
enjoyed critical acclaim back in 2009 and, with its follow-up LP Father,
Son, Holy Ghost, the ever-evolving duo of Christopher Owens and Chet
“JR” White officially cemented their place amongst the indie world’s
shining stars. We caught up with the band’s front man Chris to talk white
sneaker fetishes, running a business and singing “Stille nacht” to sailors at
Christmas time in Antwerp’s docks.
Interview Nicholas Lewis, with additional research by Pauline Miko
…and I noticed that the car, the Corvette,
in the video was white as well. I mean, is
there a link to be made or is it just me tripping
out?
(laughs) No, you’re, no… You’re reading
into it too much! The Corvette is silver.
Well I watched it on my shitty laptop.
Yeah. I wear the shoes not because of the
fact that they’re white, but just because of the
fact that they’re the classic Air Force One’s.
You know, because of the fact that they’re not
trendy. That’s why I like them.
Compared to the first one, this new album
sounds a lot richer, more accomplished.
I mean, it definitely sounds like you have
come of age as a songwriter. Other than
relentless touring, what would you attribute
this maturity gain to?
Yeah, you know, I don’t think there’s any
difference. One third of the songs on the new
album were written at the same time than
the songs from the first album. It’s just that
the recordings are better, we’re working in
a studio, with a group of musicians that are
very good. But in the first album I was playing

every instruments and JR was running all
the equipment and now on this album we
had engineers, producers and musicians and
a studio and everything was done right. But
there’s no change.
On the album’s first song Honey Bunny,
which is also the video you just released,
you sing ‘they don’t like my bony body,
they don’t like my dirty hair’ and then you
go on to sing about a girl who loves you for
who you are. This theme of acceptance -
are you referring to anyone in particular
or is it more of a general statement?
It’s a general statement. The song was
written at the time when the person in the song
doesn’t know for sure if they’re ever going to
find somebody, the right person. It’s about
saying: I’m not going to give up, I’m going to
keep trying because it might be right around
the corner. It’s about optimism.
You’ve been quoted as saying that you
think that music is a spiritual way to communicate
transcendent things…
Yeah, it’s more about just communicating
my feelings. I think it’s important for me because
I’m trying to figure these things out myself. It’s
just talking about it in the songs in the same way
that somebody might go to therapy or write a
journal. That’s really the motive. I don’t want
to indoctrinate anybody with any kind of theories,
but I do want to communicate my feelings.
For me it’s really selfish.
How important is the validation of websites
such as Pitchfork to you? What do
you think of this moral authority that one
website commands on the indie scene?
I don’t really know. I don’t follow it, I don’t
check it, I don’t read it. But I know when they
give us a good score, I hear about it. It’s just
like anything, when you get an award or you
get praise… It’s really not the time where you
feel successful. You feel successful the first time
you listen to the album after it’s finished. It’s
the same for live shows – when you’ve had a
good show and when the audience was really
great. And after that it’s like when people close
to you are telling you they have real respect for
what you’re doing or something. And finally
after that, of course you want to get some
respect from the people in the industry. But it’s
really not the first thing. Our booking agents,
our record label, our fans, … They were there
before our first album, before we got a review.
I think it helps, of course, but I know for
example if Pitchfork had given us a bad support
on this album it wouldn’t have made a difference.
The tour was already booked before
this. We don’t go and say like: “hey, look at the
score, will you give us a show?”
Music
Doing my research, I couldn’t help but feel
that you’re definitely moving closer to the
mainstream and it’s not a move that you
seem to be doing yourself. Rather, it’s the
mainstream that seems to be embracing
you, I mean you have interviews in GQ,
Vogue Italia, showcases on Conan. How do
you feel about that? You’re clearly becoming
the darling of the airwaves.
It’s just because those people are just slower
than the public. You know, it’s the same in politics
for example. Finally yesterday, there’s no
discrimination about homosexuality in the
army anymore. It’s just the government always
needs an extra 10 years just to catch up. It’s the
same with people like GQ. They would never
say “Oh, I saw a band last night in a bar, let’s do
a story!” They wait until you’re becoming relevant.
The only reason that the mainstream is
catching on is because they’re the slowest ones.
Probably the final person to catch on would be
like hum… Obama or something!
ˆ
If Pitchfork had given us
a bad support on this album
it wouldn’t have made a
difference. The tour was
already booked before this.
We don’t go and say like:
‘ Hey, look at the score, will
you give us a show? ’
ˇ
That’d be nice…
Yeah, that’s the goal! They’ll give me a call
and say: “I’ve listened to your album and it’s
really good!”
You recently stated in an interview that
“The album should go down in history as
an important album. I hope people realise
that. Whether they do or not, they should
at least not write it off as music that is
trying to sound a certain way.”
Yeah, you know, I believe that this is a great
album, I believe that the music is great and that
we did a good job making it. We took huge steps
up from the first album to the EP to this record. It
would have been really easy for us to spend three
or four thousand dollars and make another one
of those and just put it out and stick to what we
know, but we invested much more money into
this new record. That’s the whole thing, even
right now, on our tour, everybody got engaged to
go on the road and they get paid a lot of money.
And you know, the easy thing to do would have
been: keep the same plan up from the beginning,
keep the money just low, keep going on cheap
tours, and rack up some money for ourselves.
You know, when you look at it, it looks like a
small business or something: every time we get
extra money we put it straight back into our business
and we make a better thing for the people
involved. I have a lot of pride about what we’re
doing because for me it’s the first time in my life
where I’m doing something and I’m basically a
part of a company. I’m making decisions. I’d
like for people to understand that this is a very
serious effort and that there is a lot of work going
on. People like to label you as a certain thing and
to me it’s frustrating because here I am 32 years
old trying to run a company, make a career out of
this and make the best albums possible.
You’ve spent some time in Belgium. Can
you tell me how you ended up here, where
you lived, any memories you kept, things
you remember about the place?
Yeah I spent like six months there! I was
living in France at the time and my mom had a
new boyfriend and I wasn’t getting along with
him and that was becoming… you know young
teen (I was like 13 years old, or maybe 12) and
I was being rebellious. So there was this place
where they wanted to send me away so I could
maybe be mature or something and to be totally
honest with you I don’t really know what city it
was, I don’t remember anything about where I
was. I remember that it was a very nice place and I
liked it a lot. We had goats roaming around freely.
Do you remember if you were in the French
speaking part or in the Flemish speaking part?
I was speaking French, for sure.
So you went with your mom to Belgium?
No, I was by myself. I do know one detail,
which is that they used to take all the children
together and there were a lot of children and
we’d go sing in the docks of Antwerp – where
there are all the big ferry boats from everywhere
around the world – and we’d go on the
boat and sing “Stille naaacht, tralala naaacht”…
Really?
I’m serious!
73
To the sailors?!
Yeah! And then we would sell some cassette
tapes of us singing. And that’s how we would
make some money. But it was like a program
for kids who were kind of having a hard time
growing up. You’d go there and learn how to sing
Christmas carols and take care of goats and play
outside. I don’t know if that helped me or not.
But I remember I liked Belgium a lot.

74 The Word with
You’ll be playing in Brussels in November.
Do you still know some people here?
Oh, I don’t know anybody there. Even one
year later I never spoke to any of those people
again. That’s the story of my whole life, you
know. Be somewhere, experience it, leave and
forget about it.
What about the time you spent in Texas?
Well you know there is a huge amount of
time there. When I moved to Texas I was 16
years old, in 1996. And a lot of things happened.
I spent about nine years there.
So nine years after you moved to San
Francisco?
Yeah. When I moved to SF I was 25.
But you were always into music, like back in
Texas, you were already playing in bands?
No, when I first moved there all I did was
just buy albums. It was the first time for me to buy
albums. I spent about four years just buying as many
albums as I could. I was just a fan, a very honest fan
of bands that were on MTV. That’s all I knew. And
then I got into punk and that’s a very different thing.
A part of the thing that came with my punk lifestyle
is that I moved into a house where a lot of us played
music together. There’s something about getting
into punk very seriously where you do start playing
music, and I did, but it wasn’t like this. I never
wrote any songs, I didn’t care about music. It was
just like in the same way that religious people sing
in a church, and they have a huge musical history,
well it’s the same for punks I think. Every punk
will tell you “Oh yes, I’ve been in a band.” I feel
like in my youth I had religious music, and then in
my teenage years I had punk music and it was only
when I became an adult that I wrote my own music.
What do you qualify your music of now?
How would you describe it?
I really don’t know. I think it’s just pop
music or you know, rock and roll music. Like
I’ve seen our CD on iTunes and it’s says “alternative
music”. You know I think that’s really
nice but I think that’s also very big. Like “alternative
to what?”
A lot has been said regarding your upbringing
and how important religion was, so I don’t want
to go into detail about it. But, your album’s
name evidently conjures feelings of some sort
of religious reference. Now I’ve also read that it
was not your attempt at all. But I guess what I’m
trying to get to here is that seen from our eyes,
the current political climate in the US is really
highly charged on religion. So I just wanted to
know: where do you stand on that?
I don’t really agree actually. I think that’s a
mess. It’s kind of like the idea that America is
free or something like that. These are lies. I think
that the “in God we trust” and the American
Republican sort of Christian thing is a lie that
is presented to the rest of the world so you guys
think we’re very religious. It’s propagated by the
American government and by the culture here.
I spent a lot of time in my life travelling around
the world, living in countries for years and years.
I still travel now and I follow the world news
and I’ll go so far as to say that a lot of European
countries are more strongly Catholic and traditionally
religious than America! For example if
you go to Belgium, it’s the same kind of feeling
in America: some people are religious, some
people aren’t. Nobody really cares. You know,
Bachmann, Rick Perry those people are not religious
people. They’re hypocrites. They do that to
receive votes. The population here is just stupid.
You know I guarantee you that those people all
have really disgusting demons in their closets.
I feel really similar
to Biggie or 2 Pac’s
personalities;
they both were raised
by a single mother who
was very dynamic with
a lot of personality
ˆ
ˇ
Do you have religion overload? Given your
upbringing, is there a point where you’re
like “Gosh these guys are making so much
out of this!”
Hum I don’t know, I kind of understand the
whole reason why people are saying that. I think
it’s because of the 60s American “hippie cult”,
you know, it’s something that happened here,
and half of the country (maybe 75 percent)
subscribe to this. They all said: “Yes we should
drop out, we should take drugs, we should
have free sex…” I mean there was a time when
the Children of God were very normal - I mean
not specifically our cult but – these were the
very normal feelings that America was turning
to. And then everybody knows that these things
came and failed. I mean people killed themselves,
the Government went in and killed the
branch deviant. Everybody knows that free sex
lead to AIDS. America has literally shifted.
So there are two elements. One, it’s interesting
to see the child of this very specific American
culture come and say ‘this is my take on what
actually happened’. But then for other people
this cult is just so bizarre. This crazy sexual
cult. All these things they don’t know about.
You know: yes there is a religious aspect but
I don’t think it’s so much religion, I think there
is a political and historical element to it taken
by the adults. You know, I feel like I got fucked
over by the older generation, by the hippies.
I realise that. But then for the people of my age
it’s like ‘he was born in a cult’. This is very dark.
I think nobody has ever asked me any questions
about religion, it’s always like ‘So then, what
happened?’ They want to hear juicy things ‘Oh
your brother died’, ‘Oh your mom did this,
your mom did that.’ I never had anybody ask me
about the religious beliefs of the John Booka.
Do you still, to a certain extent, live the
way you where brought up? Do you still
believe in certain of the things of The
Children of God?
No I can’t you know, it’s not possible. In
order for me to do that, I’d have to separate
myself from the world again and live in a community
with hundreds of people, I’d have to
stop earning money, I’d have to… We used
to live in a very complicated way and I think
I would never live like that again. I would have
to go back to them. I’m 100 percent free right
now. I had no freedom before.
Is it a part of your childhood that you look
back at negatively?
No. Because I don’t want to do that. I did
that for a long time but it’s very unhealthy. You
know I would not just be upset; I’d get so angry.
It’s not even an option for me to be upset about
that. If you research anything about this group,
you’d know what I’m talking about. You’d
know that the children try to kill the parents
that brought them up and kill themselves.
This is not a fucking joke! I’ve been out of the
Children of God since 1996. It’s a long time
ago. And I’ve learned how to appreciate what
happened to me and like myself. If I don’t do
that, it’s all over. I’d be finished, other people
would be finished. You know, there is just no
option. The only option that I have is to say
“everything is fine”.
One of the things in your childhood is
that you couldn’t discover music directly.
Apart from going to record stores, how
would you discover new music now?
On YouTube. (laughs)
Personally, SF is a city I love. I’ll always
remember the record store “Amoeba
Records”? Does that still exist? Does it hold
a lot of meaning to the city’s musicians? Did
it help in anyway for you? Did you play there?
Yeah we played there for our first album
release. I go there all the time, I live in that neighbourhood,
so that’s where I buy my albums.

Like I said, this interview is going to run in
our white album, which will evoke themes
of purity, transparency and honesty. Which
are themes that could really describe a big
chunk of your latest album. There is a fresh
naivety, it’s simple, self-spoken. You talk
about ‘starting anew, that’s why I’m sticking
with you, nobody makes me feel better
and magic.’ It’s very honest and transparent.
Is that kind of who you are? Do you
kind of to say things the way…
Yeah yeah. This is how I am. I’m very open.
Of course it’s great for the song writing and it’s
great for interviews and it’s great for any kind
of public personality. When I see people, I can
talk with them and it’s just much easier to be just
very honest but then at the same time I have a lot
of stress…distressfulness. I feel stupid or I feel
like people know too much about me. You know
I read interviews and I feel like they made mistakes
at the wrong things. I have to talk to my
family all the time because they think I have a
drug problem…The reality is that I’m OK, you
know. The reality is just that I’m running a big
business here. People work for me, and there’s
been a recession in the United States for the past
five years while I had to develop a brand new
company! And I’m doing well, so…
I can’t help but notice that any artist referring
to his band or his art as a business is
pretty rare! I’ve never met an artist who
takes it so seriously and really talks about
it like you’re the General Manager for the
company “and I have employees and all”.
You know, this shit is serious!
Ha ha! I don’t know. Maybe it’s the wrong
thing to say…
Just to give me an idea, I don’t need a specific
figure here but you know this second
album, it’s getting so much praise. Is this it
for you? Are you guys kind of like comfortable
for the next five years of your life and can
you now buy yourself a studio and invest in
gear and buy yourself a house, or…?
No! I mean, nobody makes money selling
records anymore.
But you’re touring.
Yeah but this is our first tour for the new
album. And sure, if we tour for the next two years,
a lot, we can earn enough money. Anyway, without
getting into money details, reality is yes, we have
a opportunity right now: we could stop recording,
play tons of festivals and outdoor…because the
licenses are admitted…Coca-Cola…Just today I
turned down a option from Tommy Hilfiger!
Why?
Because that’s what we do. We would
not accept Tommy Hilfiger’s option for a
Music
commercial and we would not play festivals for
two years on one album and keep the money
apart: we’re going to the studio by next year.
If I had to choose a musical genre that was
the furthest away from what you guys are
doing now, I’d say rap is definitely it. Do
you listen to any hip-hop, who’s is your
favourite gangsta rapper?
Oh I love hip-hop. My favourite rapper right
now is Tylor the Creator. I’ve always liked rap. I
feel really similar to Biggie or 2Pac’s personalities;
they both were raised by a single mother who
was very dynamic with a lot of personality. 2Pac’s
mother was a political activist, Biggie’s mother was
a single mother and they both didn’t finish college
and they, at some point, started to write songs and
they became very open and honest and tried to
write everything and they did it until they died.
And Biggie’s real name is actually Christopher
Wallace. But, realistically I feel exactly the same
as those two guys. I used to be a very big Wu-Tang
fan but I think that’s kind of over now.
We asked a couple of our readers to send us
questions on Twitter and one reader had
a particularly funny one. He’s like ‘What
does it feel like to be idolised by Pitchfork
media but not to be able to be found on
Google?’
(laughs)
I read somewhere that you’re working on a
reggae album. Is that a project that’s still
going on?
Yeah, I mean not really. When I talked
about working on it, that was the time when
I was writing the songs but I had to put them
away. That’s really how all of our work is done:
I write them, put them away and the next day
of work is just in the studio, there’s nothing in
between so yeah, the first job has been done
for the reggae album (the songs are written) but
really I don’t know when we’ll work on it, I don’t
know if this is going to happen.
It will be a Girls project, then?
I’d like it to be. I’ve received a lot of oppositions
from the others involved, specifically on
this one! It’d have to be done differently. I think
that people have done co-records like that. I’d
have to be done in a studio with a Jamaican producer,
vocal musicians and all that.
All right. Last question: if I’m not mistaken,
you like Oasis, the band?
Oh yeah!
What do you prefer, Beady Eye or High
Flying Birds (Liam and Noel’s new
projects)?
Oh God, I wish I knew, ah. I’d really love
to tell you an answer but I haven’t listened to
either of them. My intuition is to stick with
Noel on this one.
Girls’ latest album Father, Son, Holy Ghost is out now on
True Panthers.
myspace.com/girls
75

76
The
Food
Special

© Sarah Eechaut
Bouchéry,
Brussels
Tastes and textures. Herbs and happiness.
Gastronomic restaurant Bouchéry, a recent
opening in the suburban south of Brussels is all
you could want for in a gourmet experience. “My
inspiration comes when I am cutting the herbs
I need,” explains Damien Bouchery of his locally
sourced seasonal menus. And local means
local, with herbs culled from the terrace garden
upstairs. The menus are short, with only three
starters and three mains, but varied; the threecourse
lunch (a snip at ¤ 24) stands shoulder-toshoulder
with the à la carte choices. The cooking
is outstanding. Veal cheeks, a set menu option,
glisten darkly on the plate; “melt in the mouth”
good, enthuses my dining companion. The firm
white flesh of the sizeable chunk of Iberico Pata
Negra pork fillet is succulent and flavoursome.
But the real pleasure is to be served food evidently
prepared with passion and sourced with
knowledge. The herbs and unusual vegetation
The Food Special
crop up throughout the menu. Nasturtium petals
plucked from a plant growing on the tree-shaded
terrace outside decorate an amuse-bouche.
A platter of cheeses arrives before dessert with a
side of sharply dressed salad leaves. Some look
prickly as if they might sting, but their slightly
bitter taste cuts through the butteriness of the
cheeses. Bouchery also gives plenty of textural
contrast both through his choice of ingredients
and their preparation. A cappuccino of lobster
bisque, the second amuse-bouche, is topped with
an airy celery foam. Hidden is the surprise of
little cubes of crisp, Granny Smith apple. Slices
of pure white radish or organic beetroot add
crunch to the juicy Pata Negra and veal cheek.
Similarly to The Word, colour plays its very own
part at Bouchéry: a mash of violet potato swirls
across a plate and the orange nasturtium petals
sit lightly beside the crispy carroty spring roll.
Bright, really bright yellow egg yolk captures
the attention in a starter served in a bowl with
Trumpet de la Morte, black chanterelles, and
crunchy bits of Jerusalem artichoke. There’s
that texture thing again. Interiors are simple
but classy and thought through. The timeless
blond wood-framed Wishbone chairs by Hans
77
Wegner front tables pert with crisp linen. Cream
leather banquettes opposite are accented with
spherical pale turquoise pendant lamps. This
is the only colour besides a simple red wild
flower amongst a vase of green grasses. The
lunchtime dining room receives light from two
sides and looks towards the terrace. The additional
main dinning room with high ceilings is
overseen by twin Spanish landscape images of
‘escape’ taken by Bouchery’s actress-partner
and the restaurant’s charming host, Bénédicte.
Bouchery from Breton leads the kitchen of his
eponymously named restaurant. Sharp readers
will have picked up the accent on the restaurant’s
name. This was added by Bénédicte to lend a
bit of glamour to the name that also references
boucherie, a butchers. Having earned a Michelin
star at his last restaurant, Bistrot du Mail in
Ixelles/Elsene, the cuddly men from Michelin
will doubtless be deliberating on Bouchery’s
Bouchéry soon. (GD)
Bouchéry
Chaussée d’Alsemberg 812A Alsembergsesteenweg
1180 Brussels
bouchery-restaurant.be

78 The pick
Rachel
The nostalgic burger
“Eating burgers makes me think of my
childhood, and I wanted to revive that,” says
Boston-born Frédérik Haspeslagh, the owner
of Rachel. Having been impregnated by
American culture during his formative years,
Haspeslagh thought to bring a little touch
of American comfort to the city’s streets,
opening up his burger joint Rachel in the
heart of Brussels’ S t Jacques neighbourhood
– right opposite Le Fontainas. Playing the
nostalgia card to great effect, the eatery’s
interiors delight in their quirkiness (think
Sponge Bob pillows, Rubik cubes, comic
books and lots of colour) whilst the burgers
on offer place Rachel right at the top of our
list. Traditionalists will no doubt go for
’the Chuck’, a 130 gram, 100 percent pure
Belgian beef patty burger with sliced pickles
and tomatoes, cheddar cheese, ketchup,
mayonnaise and mustard, held together by an
authentic soft burger bun topped with sesame
seeds and served with nachos and green salad.
It’s the kind of burger that’ll send you on a
trip down memory lane.
Classic ’Chuck’ Burger: ¤ 10,00
Rachel
Rue du Marché au Charbon 100 Kolenmarktstraat
1000 Brussels
a burger bonanza
New burger joints have been popping up on the city’s
streets with more urgency than sesame seeds on a burger
bun. And we’re talking the trendy, Kobe-beef style joints
here. The kind of places where the fries and coleslaw
come extra (a big no no in our books). Intent on setting
the record straight and shining a light on the true school
originals, we highlight three burger bars that, for us, pass the
credibility and provenance test.
Writer Sarah Schug Photographer Ulrike Biets

Hotel Conrad’s Bar Loui
The gourmet burger
A favourite with the city’s businessmen and
visiting dignitaries, Bar Loui, like most
hotel bars, has a simple but well-kept plan: it
serves up classics, but it does so well. Take its
Bacon-Cheeseburger for starters. The work
(and pride) of head chef Frédéric Gonzalez, it
surprises in its juiciness, every bite delivering
its own dose of carefully scripted grease drops
down the burger bun. It also is perfectly balanced,
with every ingredient (110 gram beef
patty imported from Ireland, cheese, crispy
bacon, crunchy iceberg salad, a tomato slice
and a freshly-baked golden bun) playing its
part in ensuring each and every taste bud is
satisfied. Add to that Gonzalez’ sauce (a secret
recipe) and you’ve just found another way to
burn a 30euro hole through your pocket. It is
highly worth it though, trust us.
Bacon-cheeseburger: ¤ 30,00
Bar Loui (inside the Conrad Hotel)
Avenue Louise 71 Louizalaan
1050 Brussels
The Food Special
Balmoral
The hangover burger
“I got the idea for the restaurant while travelling
through the US back in 1989 and have
been going back ever since to get new inspirations,”
says Balmoral owner Pascal Nihoul.
Serving up traditional American food (everything
from nachos to pancakes and spare ribs
are on the menu), the diner’s best known for its
burgers, which honour American’s belief that
big is better. At a whopping 200 grams, and
way larger than any other burger we sampled,
Balmoral’s Classic Cheeseburger (100% pure
Belgian beef, cheddar cheese, grilled onions
and ketchup) comes out top of the list as far
as grease count is concerned (and, don’t be
mistaken, that’s a good thing in our burger
books). It’s a messy affair, yes, but that’s half
the fun. One the Sunday morning hangover
victims will relish.
Classic cheeseburger: ¤ 12,20
Le Balmoral
Place Brugmann 21 Brugmannplaats
1050 Brussels
79
Brussels’ other
stand out burgers
delecta
Rue Lannoystraat 2,
1050 Brussels
houtsiplou
Rue du Midi 161
Zuidstraat, 1000 Brussels
fatboys
Place du Luxembourg 5
Luxemburgplein,
1050 Brussels
cool buN
Rue Berckmansstraat 34,
1060 Brussels

80
The tour
a table for Belgium
Want the best Filet americain/Steak tartare in town
(the one that even Bill Clinton got to taste)? Or the juiciest
Stoemp around? Maybe you’re in the mood for a steaming
casserole of mussels? Or a Bloempanch (Brussels’ infamous
flour and blood sausage dish) is really what makes your
mouth water? Whatever your national dish of choice,
chances are we know the best table for it.
Writer Nicholas Lewis Photographer Grégoire Pleynet

Au Vieux St Martin
The staple of the Niels restaurant empire (which
also includes La Marie Joseph on Place St
Catherine as well as the Canterbury in Flagey),
Le Vieux St Martin sits on Brussels’ Grand
Sablon/Grote Zavel the way a queen sits on her
throne – majestic, composed and dignified.
With its kitchen open for business throughout
the day, it has ever since its opening in 1968
excelled in cooking up authentic Belgian
cuisine (its Filet Américain, invented in 1924
by founder Albert Niels, is the stuff of legend)
for the upper crust of society – everyone from
Bill Clinton to Johnny Depp has eaten here. A
pillar of the city’s dining landscape, Au Vieux St
Martin is the kind of place where your parents
took you as a child, and where you’ll definitely
be taking your children too – kind of like that
Piaget watch that is passed on from generation
to generation and never goes out of fashion.
Au Vieux St Martin
Place du Grand Sablon 38 Grote Zavel
1000 Brussels
The Food Special
Le Pré Salé
81
Founded in 1968, le Pré Salé is squeezed
between two townhouse on Brussels’ Rue
de Flandres/Vlaamsesteenweg, its entrance
flanked on both sides by two large windows
offering full view of the restaurant’s interior.
Once inside, the first thing that strikes you is
the open kitchen, the magnificent tiling on the
floors and walls as well the glassworks dating
back to the 1800s, and which hang above the
kitchen counter. Authentic and no-nonsense,
le Pré Salé’s our go-to-place for seasonal
mussels, which come direct from Zeeland
(owner John Lerinckx calls them the ’golden’
mussels) and are best served ’nature, with a
portion of homemade French fries of course
Rue de Flandre 20 Vlaamsesteenweg
1000 Brussels.

82
Taverne du Passage
Clean cut waiters with crisp white coats,
Brasserie-style cuisine and art-deco interiors
combine to make la Taverne du Passage an 82
year old institution amongst the city’s ’bons
vivants’ and movie-goers (the restaurant sits
next door to the Cinema Arenberg) alike.
Famed for its Americain/Tartare prepared
on-the-spot (’en salle’) by the expert waiters
and revered for its Croquettes de Crevettes
Grises/Garnalenkroketten it really is the
restaurant’s bustling atmosphere – think
clinking cutlery and smoke-thick laughter –
that makes it so endearing – and easy to come
back to.
Galerie de la Reine 26 Koninginnegalerij
1000 Brussels
The tour
Restobières
Something of a museum to Belgian dining (the
restaurant’s walls are lined with all kinds of
vintage Belgian candy, biscuit and chocolate
tins, as well as vintage beer trays), Restobières
specialises, at its name indicates, in recipes
which include beer. This can mean anything
from Scampi in Kriek to Stoemp in Chouffe,
although the restaurant’s reputation was really
built on its Bloempanch, a large flour and
blood sausage dosed in Kriek. The perfect
food to get drunk to, they don’t get any more
authentic than Restobières.
Rue des Renards 32 Vossenstraat
1000 Brussels

Le Chou de Bruxelles
Another obligatory stop on Brussels’ mussels
trail, Le Chou de Bruxelles stands apart
through the sheer variety of its offering. Its
mussels (also from Zeeland) are available in
over 30 different flavours, although it is the
restaurant’s ’Moules à la Chef’ (vegetables,
ginger, white wine, garlic and cream) and
’Moules à l’Ardennaise’ (vegetables, bacon,
mushrooms and cream), which tops diners’
wish list. Add to that the menu’s Belgian white
wine (from Flanders’ Hageland region), the
obligatory bib one must wear when digging
into a casserole of mussels as well as the statue
of the Manneke Pis that hovers above the
table, and you’ll quickly comprehend why
this has become, since its beginnings in 1994,
one of the neighbourhood’s favourite tables.
Rue de Florence 26 Florencestraat
1050 Brussels
The Food Special
Aux Armes de Bruxelles
Founded in 1921 by the Veulemans family,
Aux Armes de Bruxelles is the patriarch of
Brussels eating, the restaurant royals dine
in – King Leopold III apparently used to
be a regular, and as recently as a couple of
weeks ago, Prince Albert II from Monaco
stopped by. Best known for its Waterzooi
(either fish or chicken), all of the restaurants’
dishes are homemade on-the-spot and served
by a distinguished and upright team of waiters
dressed in the restaurant’s emblazoned white
coats and black trousers. With a cosy and intimate
feel to it (certain tables come complete
with their own private booths), Aux Armes de
Bruxelles is the ambassador, the flag-waver.
Rue des Bouchers 13 Beenhouwersstraat
1000 Brussels
83

84 The food showstoppers
Let’s do brunch on Sunday…
Nothing beats Sunday morning brunch with the family.
The cousin that laughs at his own jokes. The uncle that’d much
rather be watching the cricket. The aunt that’s laid on a feast
fit for kings. The nephew still hung-over from the night before.
The granddad wondering what all the fuss is about (“All I want
is an egg and some butter on toast”). The toddler turning the
entire kitchen upside down. And the youngsters watching
Hannah Montana reruns on the telly. Aah, Sunday brunch
– it’s messy and it’s noisy but there’s nothing quite like it.
Photographer Melika Ngombe Section editor Melisande McBurnie
for serving:
donna Wilson spring jug
Part of Donna Wilson’s spring collection,
this jug’s seasonal patterns are just the breeze
of fresh air you need at the brunch table.
It’s uplifting, it’s endearing and, most important
of all, bellows the breakfast table with
good vibes. And it’s only a jug.
¤ 65,00
Available from La Fabrika (Brussels).
donnawilson.com

for storing:
Joseph Joseph melanine bread bin
How ingenious. A bread box whose cover
doubles as a cutting board. Perfect for
you space-constrained city-slickers, Jacob
Anderson’s two-in-one novelty comes in
classic black or sparkling white and affords
enough storage space to stock just about the
right variety of loafs to keep the entire family
happy.
¤ 65,00
Available from Buss Jadoul (Brussels).
josephjoseph.com
The Food Special
for spreading:
butter dish
Butter’s probably the most essential ingredient
for brunch. You’ll need it for your
scrambled eggs. You’ll need it for your toast
and, if you’re feeling piggish, you’ll need it for
your pancakes too. So it is only normal that
it deserves its own dish, just as the jam or the
milk do too. And, the trick here is to keep it
bare and minimal: see-through and, above
all, easily accessible. Check.
¤ 13,00
Available from Habitat (Brussels).
habitat.be
85

86 The food showstoppers
for holding:
donna Wilson bird eggcup
Why had no one ever thought of this earlier?
An eggcup with a bird’s nest pattern on it.
How fitting. How cute. How lovely. Available
as a three-piece army (the names are Bird,
Meg and Mogg) but sold separately, the
ceramic eggcups are handmade and printed in
the United Kingdom. Ideal for dipping your
little morning soldiers in.
¤ 13,00
Available from La Fabrika (Brussels).
donnawilson.com
for frying:
bacon and sausages
The fry-up. No brunch is complete without it.
Being somewhat experts at the art of Sunday
morning grease feasts, we’ve built up quite
an impressive book of ’best for…’ addresses,
and Brussels butcher Jack O’Shea’s organic
back bacon and Irish breakfast sausages
are the best there is in town – hands down.
The bacon comes vacuumed packed whilst
the sausages are made on the spot. Beware
though: once you go Jack’s you can’t go back.
Organic, dry cured, smoked back bacon (¤ 21,95/kg)
Organic sausages (¤ 15,25/kg)
Available from Jack O’Shea.
jackoshea.com

for drinking:
bugatti’s Milla espresso maker
Trusted sources tell us this is the espresso
maker purists will go for. Combining timeless
elegance with functional ingenuity, Bugatti’s
Milla espresso maker satisfies our need
for design discipline with its streamlined
elegance whilst catering to our traditionalist
urges with its back to basics approach.
Suitable for gas, ceramic and electric cooktops,
it might not exactly scream ’instant’ but
you better believe this aluminium-framed pot
is set to become your next best friend.
¤ 49,00
Available from Buss Jadoul (Brussels).
casabugatti.it
The Food Special
for eating:
Villeroy & boch breakfast plates
Plates are an all-too-often forgotten element
of brunch politics, a last thought. A ’fuck it,
let’s just use the ones we always use’ kind
of thing. Truth is, what good is an intricate
pattern on a plate if, at the end of the day,
it only stands to be hidden by a mountain
of grease? Best to play it understated, right?
Well, we’ve found just the set of breakfast
plates you need. With confident restraint
and just the right dose of colour, these
Villeroy & Boch breakfast plates will show
your guests that you made the effort, without
saying so too loudly.
Available from Buss Jadoul (Brussels).
villeroy-boch.com
87

88
The shelf
Arts Photography Publishing
Shedding light
When all else fails, let us look to the light and draw from it a
moment we shared. When it was just right, when it fell on us so
perfectly, all those little details it helped, erm, bring to light,
mummified in the well of memories. For it is here that they will
keep, as the light shifts and steals new shape. There are some
that will always remain.
camden
by Jean-Christian Bourcart
Images en Manœuvres Editions
Bourcart’s most recent publication – what
could almost be described as a photo journal –
sees him set foot into one of Americas most
malignant areas. It portrays the subject in
complete disarray, caught off guard. It’s as if
the state had just come and repossessed the
bed, the fridge, even the roof, just as he was
about to click the shutter. Q-tips litter the
floor, along with pen caps and exposed cables.
From bitter cold streets to sticky tarmac and,
every so often, a gesture, a kiss, an embrace.
This is the stuff of “shit”… All the things you
weren’t supposed to see. And to think he simply
googled “most+dangerous+city+america”,
result “Camden.”
red roses yellow rain
by Marrigje de Maar
hatje Cantz
In Red Roses Yellow Rain, Marrigje
captures the more humble abodes and their
interiors over a period of several visits to the
“Motherland”, a country rapidly hurtling
into modernisation. Here she allows us to
spy into a culture still steaming with history
and traditions. A domestic journey into
communist China and what lies behind the
wall. It’s almost like walking onto the set of a
Zhang Yimou film. The classic coral-red and
jade-green with floral flasks and pink plastic
bags taking on a form of true “minimal-decor”
all captured with that similar somber light. So
inviting are these images, one can almost smell
the tea brewing.
Writer Melisande McBurnie Photographer Stine Sampers
gone?
by Robert Adams
Steidl
In his latest book Gone?, Robert Adams
take us on a “Hansel and Gretel” journey
into the landscape of a recollection based in
Colorado. Shot in black and white, a series of
photos taken in the 1980s document the slow
evolution of a once wild region. Revisiting a
place, where as a young boy Adams walked
and the impact it now plays on reshaping
his memory, Gone? is the disappearance of
personal landmarks, of how one got from
A to B and all the little pit stops in-between.
There is something engaging upon seeing
Adams’ vast lands devoid of colour that leaves
us with an urge to fill it in, a true scrapbook
of sorts. One can’t help but want to remember
with him of how it used to be…
far Too close
by Martina Hoogland Ivanow
Steidlmack
Far Too Close entangles the boundaries
between familiar and foreign. Drawing the
viewer into something of a secret and what
lurks in its shadows, Ivanow depicts the
features of an almost faceless person, making
it near impossible to make out where one
subject ends and the other begins. Having
traveled extensively over a seven year period
to remote places such as Siberia, Sakhalin
Island and Tierra del Fuego, on the southern
tip of Argentina, the photographer sets out
to explore and capture a personal history of
“home”. The shape of sheets are here and the
place on a pillow where a head had rested.
black and White
by Ellsworth Kelly
hatje Cantz
Investigating the interplay of positive and
negative, form versus colour and the space
that surrounds us, Ellsworth Kelly brings us
back to basics. With over six decades of study
and observation into his everyday surroundings,
having first gained worldwide acclaim
for his paintings and drawings, Kelly now
presents us with Black and White. Asking the
viewers’ approach to be that of a child, who
learns from disassembling and reassembling,
the result is engaging and playful – looking
somewhat simple at first sight though closer
inspection reveals there’s an equation behind
each move, a “working out” so to speak,
a consideration of weight, balance and its
tipping point. Indeed we are left with a querying
feeling of “What came first?”
Visit thewordmagazine.be/dribbles/theblackbooks
for Amazon purchase links.

from left to right
Far Too Close (Steidlmack),
Red Roses Yellow Rain (Hatje Cantz),
Gone? (Steidl), Black & White (Hatje Cantz)
and Camden (Images en Manœuvres Editions).
Culture
89

90
The view
Photography
above the clouds
The fluffiness of clouds. Their infinity and
serenity. The layer of cosiness they resemble
from atop. And how unattainable they often seem
from down below. They’re not always there nor
are they always what they seem. They’re what
you want them to be.
Photographer Julie Calbert

Culture
91

92 The view

Culture 93
Visit thewordmagazine.be/wonders/abovetheclouds
for our full feature on clouds.

94 The advertisers
Pages 2-3
Sony
sony.be
Pages 4-5
Asus
be.asus.com
Page 9
Delvaux
delvaux.com
Page 11
Swatch
swatch.com
Page 7
Canon
canon.be
Page 17
Braun
braun.com/cruzer

Page 19
Desperados
desperados.be
Page 31
The Word Magazine
thewordmagazine.be/the-magazine
Page 97
Le Book
lebook.com
Page 21
The Word & Levis
fashionforwalls.be
Page 49
Rouge Tomate
rougetomate.be
Page 99
Hotel Amigo
hotelamigo.com
round-up
Page 29
Faguo
faguo-shoes.com
Page 71
The Word on the iPad
thewordmagazine.be/ipad
Page 100
Hermès
hermes.com
95

96 The stockists
Consume We love
agnes B
Boulevard de Waterloolaan 27
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 512 08 77
agnesb.com
Bugatti (at Buss Jadoul)
Chaussée de Charleroi 18
Charleroisesteenweg
1060 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 538 14 45
casabugatti.it
Carine Gilson
Rue A. Dansaertstraat 87
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 289 51 47
carinegilson.com
Chanel Brussels
Boulevard de Waterloolaan 63
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 511 20 59
Chanel antwerp (at SN3)
Frankkrijklei 46-48
+32 (0) 3 231 08 20
2000 Antwerp
chanel.be
Chauncey (at Mapp)
Rue Léon Lepagestraat 5
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 551 17 67
Chauncey (at houben)
Steenhouwersvest 46
2000 Antwerp
+32 (0) 3 227 42 10
chauncey.be
Christophe Coppens
Rue Léon Lepagestraat 2
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 512 77 97
christophecoppens.com
Converse (at People)
Rue du Lombardstraat 14-18
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 502 18 01 €
converse.be
Damir Doma (at ra)
Kloosterstraat 13
2000 Antwerp
+32 (0) 3 292 37 80
damirdoma.com
Dolce&Gabbana Brussels
(at Francis Férent)
Boulevard de Waterloolaan 34
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 545 78 30
Dolce&Gabbana antwerp
(at Verso)
Lange Gasthuisstraat 11
2000 Antwerp
+32 (0) 3 226 92 92
dolcegabbana.com
Donna Wilson (at La Fabrika)
Rue A. Dansaertstraat 182
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 502 33 25
donnawilson.com
Dries Van Noten (at Stijl)
Rue A. Dansaertstraat 74
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 512 03 13
Dries Van Noten (at Modepaleis)
Nationalsetraat 16
2000 Antwerp
+32 (0) 3 470 25 10
driesvannoten.be
Elvis Pompilio
Rue Lebeaustraat 67
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 512 85 88
elvispompilio.com
Jack o’Shea
Rue Le Titien 30 Titiaanstraat
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 732 5351
jackoshea.com
Joseph Joseph
(at Buss Jadoul)
Chaussée de Charleroi 18
Charleroisesteenweg
1060 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 538 14 45
josephjoseph.com
habitat Brussels
Woluwe Shopping Center
Rue Saint Lambertstraat 198
1020 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 775 00 00
habitat antwerp
Beddenstraat 2 b44
2000 Antwerp
+32 (0) 3 205 12 40
habitat.be
haider ackermann (at Stijl)
Rue A. Dansaertstraat 74
1000 Brussels
+ 32 (0) 2 512 03 13
haiderackermann.be
Indress (at Balthazar)
Avenue Louise 294 Louizalaan
1050 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 647 77 37
indress.net
Jean Paul Knott
Boulevard Barthélémylaan 20
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 514 18 35
jeanpaulknott.com
Lancôme (at Ici Paris XL)
Rue Neuve 37 Nieuwstraat
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 219 22 07
Lancôme (at Planet Parfum)
De Keyserlei 34-36
2000 Antwerp
+32 (0) 3 234 07 01
lancome.be
Louis Vuitton Brussels
Boulevard de Waterloolaan 59
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 289 28 29
Louis Vuitton antwerp
Komedieplaats 14-16
2000 Antwerp
+32 (0) 3 212 12 12
louisvuitton.com
Maison Martin Margiela
Rue de Flandre 114
Vlaamse Steenweg
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 223 75 20
maisonmartinmargiela.com
Maison Michel
(at hunting and Collecting)
Rue des Chartreux 17
Kartuizerstraat
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 512 74 77
Maison Michel (at Louise 54)
Avenue Louise 54 Louizalaan
1050 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 511 62 43
maison-michel.com
Marni (at Louise 54)
Avenue Louise 54 Louizalaan
1050 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 511 62 43
Marni (at SN3)
Frankrijklei 46-48
2000 Antwerp
+32 (0) 3 231 08 20
marni.com
Mou (at Juliette Verlaine)
Rue du Pot d'Or 18/A
4000 Liège-Luik
+32 (0) 4 232 41 41
mou-online.com
Mouton Collet
(at hunting and Collecting)
Rue des Chartreux 17
Kartuizerstraat
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 512 74 77
moutoncollet.com
Pamela Love
(at hunting and Collecting)
Rue des Chartreux 17
Kartuizerstraat
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 512 74 77
pamelalovenyc.com
Prada Brussels
(at Francis Férent)
Boulevard de Waterloolaan 34
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 545 78 30
Prada antwerp (at SN3)
Frankrijklei 46-48
2000 Antwerp
+32 (0) 3 231 08 20
prada.com
rajesh Pratap Singh (at
haleluja)
Place du Nouveau Marché aux
Grains 6 Nieuwe Graanmarkt
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 513 42 50
pratap.ws
rue Blanche
Rue A. Dansaertstraat 39-41
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 481 50 81
rueblanche.be
Soki (at Beyond Fashion)
Pourbusstraat 7
2000 Antwerp
+32 (0) 3 237 85 41
Soki (at rewind)
Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 44
9000 Ghent
+32 (0) 9 324 84 04
soki.be
Villeroy&Boch
(at Buss Jadoul)
Chaussée de Charleroi 18
Charleroisesteenweg
1060 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 538 14 45
villeroy-boch.com
Walter Lecompte
Place Jean Jacobs 17 Jacobsplein
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 512 08 23
Wolford (Brussels)
Avenue Louise 40 Louizalaan
1050 Brussels
Wolford (Ghent)
Koestraat 19
9000 Ghent
+32 (0) 9 224 25 08
wolfordshop.com
Wouters&hendrix Brussels
Places Georges Brugmann 16
Georges Brugmannplein
1050 Brussels
Wouters&hendrix antwerp
Lange Gasthuisstraat 13B
2000 Antwerp
+32 (0) 3 231 62 42
wouters-hendrix.com

98 Before we leave you…
Play The team
grey. It’s an in-betweener really.
a ’neither here nor there’ kind of colour. It ain’t black, and it aint white either.
It’s a mix. a clash of opposing worlds or the best of both worlds, depending on where you’re looking from.
For us, grey has added relevance as the unofficial colour of Belgium.
Indeed, the colour seems to seep-through every layers of local life,
with the general mood pervading the country generally tilting towards perpetual grey tones.
In a determined return to our roots imbued of a very special Belgian focus,
here’s what you can expect of the grey album:
Pigeon-feeding accounts
asphalt adventures
Suburban grey zones
Depression documentaries
Government waste
Shrimp fishing
Touring tales
It might not be our most uplifting edition ever, but it sure will be authentic.
The Word’s grey album
( + the fashion special )
out Friday 3 rd February 2012
Leontien Allemeersch