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volume 01 — issue 04

— the ultimate getaway —

Neighbourhood Life + Global Style

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Bubble Superstar

THE FOURTH WORD — 5

We had big, very big ideas for our Getaway issue. Zooming in on the interiors of Belgium-bound private jets, getting an exclusive peak at the Eurostar’s heavy-guarded control room, Top-Gearing it down the airport’s runway or even spending a weekend with the nation’s trucking cognoscenti were just some of the many ideas we threw around. Until, that is, we remembered that we merely were The Word.

Indeed, authorizations to get granted access to control rooms – even if only Gare du Midi’s – are hard to come by, Falcon owners are not too keen to publicize their ownership of gas-guzzling fl ying roadsters and airports didn’t, for some reason, warm up to the idea of The Word’s fashion pack descending upon their runways – a small concern regarding something called security apparently.

Not to worry though, we found better alternatives…

For our Belgium section, we get a fi rst-hand account of the country’s most notorious prison escape and reminisce on the pride that is having a home-grown airline. We roam around a ghost town outside of Antwerp in a souped-up El Camino for our Fashion spread whilst our Design pages see us call-in products from L.A to Milan – we couldn’t resist telling you - for our newspaper-wrapped design shoot.

So whether it be behind your Mac screen in a dim-lit studio or with a Strawberry Daiquiri on Salinas, make sure to enjoy these next two summer months. Just don’t forget to take The Word with you as it sure could do with a little sun.

See you back in September for our Delectable Foodie issue.

The Word is Yours.

Nicholas Lewis

The Word is

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6 — THE FOURTH WORD

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It’s a Word’s WorldInstore

Our Post-it Page Our Pick of Agenda Fillers – BelgiumOur Pick of Agenda Fillers – Belgium

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The Delectable Foodie IssuePeugeot

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contributors

It's aWord'sWorld

Alex Deforce

Writer

The brains behind the excellent on-point.be website, our man Alex is one passionate and funk-fuelled soulster, bringing his many fans the best in unedited, high-browed and thought-provoking video wizardry. A journalist in the purest of forms, Alex is one of those cats you know will go places so we had to catch up with him whilst we still could. In the back of a stolen BMW that is.

—

Pages n° 28, 29, 30

Geneviève Balasse

Photographer

Geneviève is building quite some reputation for herself as the portraitist-in-chief for Belgium’s burgeoning Hip Hop scene. Be it concerts, MC bat-tles or jams, it seems her lens is always fi rmly focused on the man – or woman – with the microphone. For The Word’s summer getaway, we asked her to shoot a travel agent. Don’t ask, she simply was the best suited to do so.

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Page n° 96

Erwin Borms

Photographer

We’re suckers for anything remotely linked to instant photography –Polaroids more precisely - and Erwin masters it like no other. For our Getaway issue, we asked him to photo-graph the outer packaging of outsized cargo consignments. He delivered.

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Pages n° 62, 63

Lalo Gonzalez

Photographer

Lalo’s on to big things, so we made sure to catch up with him before he left our shores for brighter and bigger ones. A fashion photographer working out of Brussels, we asked him for a Steve McQueen/American road trip feel. He came back with better, much better.

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Pages n° 48, 49, 50, 51, 52,

53, 54, 55, 56, 57

Julien Mourlon

Writer

The Word contributor from day one, Julien is a man of many trades. Be it his eponymous Laid-Back Radio Show or his podcast-brilliant website of the same name, our man can’t seem to stay still for longer than a Guilty Simpson mix. For The Word, he mainly specializes, with partner-in-crime Alex Deforce, in the small yet sublime and this month’s article on the country’s most infamous prison escape is no exception.

—

Pages n° 28, 29, 30

12 — THE FOURTH WORD THE FOURTH WORD — 13

As you’re about to notice, the Belgian section of our diary took somewhat of a beating this month. Rest assured though, this is not – we repeat, not – be-cause of our country’s supposed cultural shortcomings. Quite the contrary actually. We simply thought that, this being our Geta-way issue, we’d slightly tailor the agenda to reflect those cities we’re likely to find you in over the sum-mer. And we’ll be back to our usual pickings in September.

Fresh Graphics

As the summer heat sets in, take in the fifth edition of Art Trek, a no fuss showcase presenting the works of fourteen young graphic and illustrative artists from all corners of the globe. A mash up of traditional media such as painting, drawing, sten-ciling, silk-screening, computer-designed drawings and collages, the exhibition brings a unique look at the graphic aesthetic of the new generation. So be sure to stop by the Mekanik comic book store to discover this unconventional mix of cultures and styles, get up to date with the contemporary alternative art scene or just simply stock up on a healthy dose of creativity. We know we will. Art Trek – The Fifth Generation

From 2nd August until 13th

September 2008

☞ Galerie Mekanik, Antwerp

www.art-trek.be

Beat Fanatic

Beat Streuli photographs cities, their streets and their people. What sets him apart though is his knack for capturing the lot from afar, whilst at the same time showing them in the intimacy of their surroundings. A Swiss today living in Brussels,

Streuli manages to give a sense of fragility to the protagonists in his pictures without omit-ting their busy backdrop, the city. For his exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, he makes judicious use of the venue’s wide structures, thus creating several different spaces and atmospheres. It has become increasingly diffi cult to stay in Brussels over the weekend and it seems that this exhibition will make it even harder. Expo Beat Streuli

Until 19th October 2008

☞ Museum of Contemporary

Arts, Hornu

www.mac-s.be

Open Continent

Another summer season, another Summer of Photogra-phy. Bringing together some of the nation’s foremost cul-tural institutions – Antwerp’s Fotomuseum and Charleroi’s Photography Museum to name but a few - the initiative presents a wealth of works within the realm of photog-raphy. It is within this visual festival that Brussels’ Centre for Fine Arts’ exhibition, Opening Maps, showcases the work of major Latin American photog-raphers and their subjective perspectives on the outside world. Over 200 photographs are selected, making a fi ne job out of revealing a unifying link in all the artists’ work and of the wider continent’s overall photographic aesthetic. One you’re sure to catch The Word bunch at.

Opening Maps – Contemporary

Photography in Latin America

Until 21st September 2008

☞ Centre for Fine Arts,

Brussels

www.bozar.be

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Paradise City

Belgian contemporary artist Johan Muyle presents a body of 20 new and never seen before works – with everything from casted self-portraits, dressed skeletons and robots - in this exhibition at Brussels’ Centre for Fine Arts. Muyle uses trav-elling souvenirs, stuff from fl ea markets and even objects found over the internet to create mixed installations and eccentric object compositions. His work often containing a touch of witty – and some would even say at times cynic – observations, this one is sure to get a smile out of you if anything else.

Sioux in paradise – Johan Muyle


☞ Centre for Fine Arts,

Brussels

www.bozar.be

Sound Lights

American-born artist T. Kelly Mason’s third solo exhibition at Galerie Catherine Bastide is a soothing yet stimulating affair. Her hung-from-ceiling poetic installations – although in times extremely bright –, leaning slivers of colour and sculptural light boxes exude an intrinsic calmness about them whilst at the same time revealing the artist’s penchant for random yet witty word-plays. Religiously using light and colour as her starting base, Mason manages to incorporate graphic and interior design as well as thought-provoking writings to form a high-spirited visual conundrum of sorts. Being somewhat suckers for all types of creative thinking and writing, we especially liked her ‘Can a Colour Name a Person’ light box.

Who are The Luminaries of Our

Time – T. Kelly Mason

Until 20th September 2008

☞ Galerie Catherine Bastide,

Brussels

www.catherinebastide.com

Handle with Care

Ghent’s ever-so-hard-working Hoet Bekaert gallery puts on yet another one of its quirky initiatives with its summer long show, Fragile. Based in the city’s former Vespa factory – although taking place in and around the gallery itself - the showcase primarily highlights the creations of young and fresh talent, some from the gallery’s portfolio as well as others not linked to it. Taking in such varied disciplines as visual arts, design, food, fi lm and music, this promises to be a mix-and-match delight of the highest order. What is more – and true to the gallery’s reputation for going that step further in bringing us the best of art – it has partnered up with an uber-conceptual catering company in order to tempt your taste buds into staying a little longer. That’ll be us!

Fragile

Until 31st August 2008

☞ Hoet Bekaert Gallery, Ghent

www.iets.be

Free Reign

For its summer program, Wal-lonia’s Grand-Hornu gives design maestro Marti Guixé complete carte blanche over its North Wing and vast gardens. Of Catalonian origin and now splitting his time between Barcelona and Berlin, Guixé is big on radical – sometimes rebellious – ideas, using his creations as unconventional statements on today’s con-suming society. The work he presents in Grand-Hornu is a slight departure from his more commercially-attuned works, focusing on fi re, celebration and public spaces to re-explore his universe.

Marti Guixé – Open End


☞ Site du Grand-Hornu

www.grand-hornu-images.be

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Prince Perfect

Richard Prince’s fi rst major exhibition in a UK gallery presents a wide spectrum of the artist’s work, spanning a 30 year career. Selecting a uniquely personal body of work in close collaboration with the gallery’s superstar director and co-director – Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist – the exhibition showcases highlights of Prince’s prolifi c career as well as more recent works in painting, photography and sculpture. With his own collection of art, furniture, memorabilia and books also on show, the exhibition reveals a more intimate streak to this grandee of classic American descend. Not to be missed.

Richard Prince: Continuation


☞ The Serpentine Gallery,

London

www.serpentinegallery.co.uk

Seasonal Cycles

Organised to coincide with his 80th birthday, Tate Modern puts on yet another blockbuster show celebrating American art-ist Cy Twombly’s many works. Twombly - who mainly paints, draws and sculpts - has had a prolific career, going through several significant moments to produce some remarkably timeless and classical oeuvres. This exhibition – the first of its kind in the UK for the past 15 years – provides a care-fully selected overview of the artist’s work, from the 1950’s to the present day, and will showcase key series such as the Ferragosto paintings and Twombly’s enormous Veil works. Essential viewing for any self-respecting modernist out there.

Cy Twombly:

Cycles and Seasons


☞ Tate Modern, London

www.tate.org.uk

Love Actually

Although greatly inspired by it, artists sometimes fi nd diffi culty in depicting – and indeed ex-pressing – their feelings of love. Even more diffi cult, however, is the issue of conveying its com-plexity and intensity through the simple appliance of a brush-stroke. Sifting through the works of everyone from Vermeer and Chagall to Emin and The Singh Twins, the exhibition does a fi ne job of showcasing those artists whose work was – and still is – an interpretation and understand-ing of what love means to them. We’re always of the opinion that the world could do with a little more love so what more could we wish for than a whole exhibition dedicated to the subject?

Love

From 24th July

until 5th October 2008

☞ The National Gallery, London

www.ng-london.org.uk

Follow the Leader

A crucial fi gure in the Vienna Art Nouveau movement, Gustav Klimt was – and still is – one of the world’s most infl uential and revered artists, as hard-working as he was innovative. Indeed, the artist – whose genius touched everything from paintings, murals and sketches – was also a leading fi gure of the Viennese Secession, a progressive group of artists and artisans driven by the desire to revisit and renew. Part of its cel-ebration as the European Capital of Culture 2008, Tate Liverpool puts together an immaculately-curated exhibition befi tting such an artist’s reputation. Although Liverpool is slightly further than London when travelling from Brussels, this somehow won’t seem to be a problem this time.

Gustav Klimt:

Painting, Design and Modern

Life in Vienna 1900

Until 31st August 2008

☞ Tate Liverpool, Liverpool

www.tate.org.uk

White Goods

Industrial Facility – a design studio made up of designers Sam Hecht and Ippei Matsumoto as well as architect Kim Colin - is given a summer long exhibition of its own at London’s Design Museum. The prolifi c design offi ce – with over 50 items de-signed for Japanese retailer Muji and countless commissions from Established&Sons, Yamaha and the likes – has become one of the major creative forces when it comes to mass-produced goods, including everything from coffee makers to stationary and kitchen ware. The exhibition also including Hecht’s “Under a Fiver” collection of items, we’ve already booked our Eurostar ticket over to the Big Smoke.

Industrial Facility

Some Recent Projects


☞ Design Museum, London

www.designmuseum.org

Fashion Royalty

Conceptualism, elegance and a very Dutch humour is what sets the work of Haute Couture gran-dees Viktor & Rolf apart. Re-nowned for their larger-than-life catwalk shows – their 1999 one, Russian Doll, consisted of the pair painstakingly dressing up a model with 10 independent lay-ers before their catwalk guests – the designers have fi rmly blurred the boundaries between art and fashion. The exhibi-tion at London’s Barbican – the fi rst of its kind dedicated to the Dutch duo in the UK – reaffi rms their position at the avant-garde end of the spectrum by present-ing pieces from Launch, their miniature representations of their ambitions and aspirations, created back in 1996. We already loved them before and simply adore them now.

The House of Viktor & Rolf


☞ Barbican Art Gallery, London

www.barbican.org.uk

Psycho Walls

London’s Hayward Gallery cel-ebrates its 40th anniversary this year and, befi tting its reputation as a forward-thinking arts venue, has asked 10 international artists to transform its gallery space for the occasion. Artists such as Korea’s Do Ho Suh and the UK’s Rachel Whiteread have been invited to revisit the gallery’s many rooms, staircases and ter-races with habitat-like structures and architectural creations. Radically altering the gallery’s interior and exterior design, the exhibition presents works which are as much about the mental and perceptual as they are about the physical. A guaranteed sum-mer favourite for all your Prada-wearing architects out there.

Psycho Buildings

Until 25th August 2008

☞ The Hayward, London

www.haywardgallery.org.uk

Constructed Reality

We sometimes feel we give slightly too much importance to the art of photography – in our diary as well as in the magazine as a whole – but we’re confi dent you’ll excuse us after seeing the work of Iranian-British photographer and fi lm-maker Mitra Tabrizian. Her large-scale prints – dealing with everything from the rise of corporate culture to nomadism and the idea of homeland – portray a different side to life in Iran, one which is far removed from pre-conceived miscon-ceptions and manages to shed light on lesser-known aspects of Iranian life. With her work and approach reminding us of Word favourite Gregory Crewdson’s photographic productions, we’re pretty sure this is one name which will keep on popping up. And so it should.

Mitra Tabrizian: This is that Place


☞ Tate Britain, London

www.tate.org.uk

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God Save The Queen

Does she still need an intro-duction? Birthmother to the punk movement, married to Sex Pistols manager Malcom McLaren, mother of Joseph Corre, founder of luxury lin-gerie label Agent Provocateur...and the name-dropping could go on. But it is her fashion label which is the most enduring testament to the designer’s tal-ent, passion and commitment. Unashamedly non-conformist, Westwood has made a career out of disrupting the fashion industry’s need for pristine – sometimes generic – collec-tions. Providing the last chance to see the V&A’s blockbuster exhibition in the UK before it closes, Sheffi eld’s Millennium Gallery plays host to the work of the grand lady of punk.

Vivienne Westwood:

The Exhibition


☞ Millennium Gallery, Sheffield

www.sheffieldgalleries.org.uk

Reconstructing Reality

Sarah Morris observes, recre-ates and reenacts situations and environments based on her canny and intimate observa-tions. Working both in fi lm and painting, the internationally-recognized artist presents, just in time for the Beijing Olympics, an exciting new body of work in Jay Jopling’s gallery. From her ‘Rings’ and ‘Origami’ paintings – focusing on the city’s con-gested arteries known as Ring Roads - or her ‘1972’ movie – in which she fi lms the man in charge of projecting worrying scenarios which could jeopard-ize the Olympics’ safety - , one thing about Morris is that she is determinedly focused. An all-too-rare feat nowadays.

Sarah Morris - Lesser Panda


☞ White Cube Mason’s Yard,

London

www.whitecube.com

Judgment Day

Bringing together an impres-sive cast of some 35 African artists and photographers, Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum once again lays it down proper. Showcasing the works of some of the continent’s better known artists, the exhibition reveals their response to the huge economical, social and cultural changes taking place in Africa. From Malinese photographer Malick Sidibé (see next entry) to Egyptian one Hala Elkoussy, the exhibition also manages to – from the little we know - be a true representation of the overall and general current state of affairs on the vast continent. Make sure you drop by if you happen to be in Amsterdam over the summer.

Snap Judgments – New

Positions in Contemporary

African Photography


☞ Stedelijk Museum,

Amsterdam

www.stedelijk.nl

Two-for-Ones

Photographer Malick Sidibé is widely known for having been one of the fi rst African photog-raphers to have gained respect in the West. The exhibition put together by Amsterdam’s ever-excellent Foam gallery makes clear why this is the case, with an impressive selection of the artist’s work. From his early Chemises - pasting party pictures he took on coloured sheets of card – to his studio work photographing the Ma-linese working class, the show confi rms the artist’s reputation as the ‘grand daddy’ of African photography.

Chemises – Malick Sidibé


☞ Foam Gallery, Amsterdam

www.foam.nl

Southern Players

New Orleans’ Superdome has over the years been the epicen-tre of the Southern American State of Louisiana, although it has sometimes been so for all the wrong reasons (last year’s Hurricane Katrina being the most recent one). But it is often forgotten that this same Super-dome has hosted numerous Super Bowls, held a Rolling Stone concert, welcomed Pope Jean Paul II and even the Republican Party’s yearly Convention. All this has inspired artist Marc-Olivier Wahler to compose fi ve solo shows which make a fi ne act of balancing entertainment and desolation, decibels and prayers and high-tech and chaos. We like ours conceptual and this one is all of that.

Superdome


☞ Palais de Tokyo, Paris

www.palaisdetokyo.com

Industrial Sculpting

César was a renowned French sculptor who religiously ex-plored the formal and expressive possibilities of industrial materi-als. What is more, he played an instrumental role in pressing jewellery brand Cartier to open an exhibition space which would allow artists to develop certain projects in complete freedom, culminating in the Fondation Cartier. For the 10th anniver-sary of the sculptor’s death, the institution asked Jean Nouvel – its in-house architect and close friend of César – to select a representative body of work for the purpose of the exhibition. With over 100 pieces exhibited bringing a fresh perspective on the artist’s work, the exhibition perfectly highlights the genius, innovation and radicalism of César’s work.

César, Anthologie by Jean Nouvel


☞ Fondation Cartier, Paris

www.fondation.cartier.com

Visual History

Put simply, this exhibition showcases the most remark-able of works by early British photographers, bringing to light their unique quality and diversity. Revealing a very British aesthetic, it introduces visitors to the fondness early British photographers held for landscapes and rural traditions, exhibiting photographs of ruins and Roman engravings. Sepa-rated in three, time-specifi c sections, Paris’ Musée d’Orsay brings a mammoth of an exhibi-tion to its rooms, with over 120 never-before-seen photographs being shown. A defi nite must-see if you happen to catch the Thalys to Paris one weekend.

The Image Revealed,

the fi rst photographs on paper

in Great Britain


☞ Musée d’Orsay, Paris

www.musee-orsay.fr

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the getaway papers

— There’s a slight riff of nostalgia to this month’s Papers. We take a trip down memory lane at the country’s favorite amusement park, fulfi ll a childhood dream 10,000ft above ground and discover the pleasures – and unassuming luxury – that are single room bed & breakfasts. All this on one mean-looking, Indian-made Bullet350. Just because we could. Writers Hettie Judah, Nicholas Lewis and Randa Wazen

Photography Yassin Serghini

Fine Bedding

Justine Glanfi eld is not the kind of Bed & Breakfast landlady that you’re likely to catch frying kippers with her curlers in. A former knitwear designer for Burberry and Burb-erry Prorsum, she moved to Brussels with her artist-photographer husband Vincent Fournier after having fallen in love with the city during an antique buying trip.

In fact, buying antiques seems to have be-come her primary occupation since moving to the city; she’s one of those infuriating peo-ple that still seems to be able to fi nd elegant bargains at the Place du Jeu de Balle, long af-ter the rest of the world has stopped visiting it in the belief that it’s full of over-priced junk.

The fi ve story house that the couple have bought in the Châtelain area of Ixelles is a testament to her fi ne eye – it’s full of sinuous

vintage pieces, industrial antiques and bits that people with a less creative vision might have sniffed at. The guest bedroom has a teardrop glass lampshade in a shade of mus-tard that would make most market shoppers walk on by, but looks shockingly good against the grey of the walls.

Guests have a whole fl oor to themselves – a bathroom stocked with natural toiletries, a library full of books on art, fashion and pho-tography and a large terrace to lounge over breakfast while listening to the vintage radio and admiring the view over Ixelles gardens.

“We wanted it to be like a gentleman’s club,” says Justine of the dark, warm library space. “Somewhere that you can sit on a bat-tered Chesterfi eld and relax with a bottle of wine and a book at the end of the day.”

The couple have also tried to keep the place as environmentally friendly as possi-

ble; there’s a solar panel on the roof, and not only the furniture, but all the fi ttings in the house are second hand. Breakfasts include organic muesli, yoghurts and jams, as well as local handmade bread.

So far they’ve had clients visiting from London on fashion research trips, and ar-chitects over to buy antiques. Having fi n-ished her own house, Justine is in no hurry to stop and has temporarily abandoned the fashion industry to start working as an inte-rior designer. ( HJ )

www.number76.be

Fine Bedding the getaway papers

The Getaway Papers


Walibibibi…

We couldn’t have possibly dreamed of doing a getaway-themed issue without going back to that most ultimate of all Belgian getaways: Walibi. From what we can remember, the name itself conjures up feelings of free-fall-ing fun and – the lesser fun part – endless queues.

Its name stands for Wavre, Limal and Bierges, the three Walloon towns which the park stretches on. Eddy Meeus, its Belgian owner, founded the park in 1975 with the initial idea of creating the fi rst safaris in Belgium’s Ardennes region. But after being denied the authorizations, the entrepreneur ventured into a whole new project: a massive open air water-skiing park.

At the time, Walibi was mainly composed of a sandy beach, a pond, a restaurant and a parking lot - and had a bright orange kanga-roo as a mascot. One might wonder why such an animal was chosen to represent a Belgian theme park. Well, the name of the park re-minding Meeus of a wallaby, he asked Guy Dessicy, former Hergé Studios contributor,

to draw an appealing looking kangaroo. And it is so that, on 20th July 1975, the kingdom’s most famous marsupial was born, the day of the park’s offi cial opening.

Innovation became the key to Walibi’s success. In the early days, its Tornado was the fi rst rollercoaster in Europe to have a double 180° loop. Its great wheel was, at 55 metres, the biggest ever to be set in an amuse-ment park. And in 1998, the Radja River, a raft ride through waterfalls, rapids and giant waves, became the largest attraction in the park, also setting a world record with its thir-ty-million-litre-per-hour fl ow. The latest to have joined the park, a cross between a roll-ercoaster and a ski lift called the Vertigo, will most surely follow in these steps. At a wor-rying 60 meters high, it mimics the sensation one could get when fl ying, for over 900 me-tres. It even got Jean-Claude Van Damme’s stamp of approval, stating that he absolutely loved “fl ying like the Belgian Peter Pan”.

The beloved amusement landmark has, however, been through its fair share of con-troversy over the years. There was the Si-rocco accident in 1997, when the train got

the getaway papers Walibibibi…

blocked for almost two hours with its pas-sengers hanging upside down, and last year’s food poisoning incident.

There also was the confusing Six Flags chapter, when Walibi was sold to the Ameri-can entertainment behemoth from 1998 to 2004. In true acquisitive nature, the fi rst thing that Six Flags did was replace the kan-garoo with Bugs Bunny – needless to say an unwise move. Indeed, in 2004 the Palamon group took over, restoring its original name and visual identity, a move greatly appreci-ated by Belgian citizens, happy to see the return of a cherished national symbol.

And a very successful one it is: Walibi attracts about one million visitors per year, mostly Belgians coming from every region of the country, but also tourists. Aqualibi, its water park equivalent opened next door in 1987, has received more than ten mil-lion guests since. Now if that isn’t love than what is. ( RW )

Excuse Me While I Kiss the Sky the getaway papers

Excuse Me

While I Kiss the Sky

We’re not usually of the kind to engage in blatant nepotism, but in this case we simply couldn’t resist. Bob Berben, uncle of our advertising man Benoit, is a Belgian bal-loonist who set a world record when he won the much-coveted Gordon Bennett Cup in 2005. But what exactly is it about balloons that spells freedom and escape ?

“It provides a surge of absolute raw pleas-ure. Just as someone will cross an ocean by himself, you’re all alone in the middle of nowhere, in total harmony with the nature around you. Imagine fl ying at night, overlook-ing the clouds, not a sound but your heart-beat, it’s surreal.” The essence of ballooning, according to Bob, resides in its “certain uncer-tainty”. “You never really know where you’re going. Well, you have more or less of an idea, but a balloon is not something you direct. You can go a bit on the left or right, but that is it”.

Bob started early, taking his fi rst fl ight at the tender age of sixteen. A professional air-

line pilot today, he has since fl own for over 19 000 hours. “Flying is like a virus”, he con-fi des. “Just as a true artist cannot live with-out creating, I constantly feel the need to be fl ying.” Extremely passionate about anything that could get him off the ground, he has tried almost every air sport under the sun. But when an old student of his took him on a hot-air bal-loon ride in 1982, there was no going back.

The highlight of Bob’s career was defi -nitely winning the uber-prestigious Gordon Bennett Cup, the world's oldest and most respected gas balloon race, in 2005, with his co-pilot, Benoît Siméons. The duo pre-pared for fi ve months before the race. “Peo-ple couldn’t understand why we would go through this, they just kept on telling us we were crazy”, Bob confi des. “And it was crazy, by the time we landed we weren’t tired, not even exhausted. We were just plain dead”.

Flying 65 hours straight, the team had to remain constantly focused whilst facing extreme conditions: lack of oxygen, hunger, thirst, peaks of 45°C during the day and -10°C at night. “I was lucky enough to get a few hours sleep” remembers Bob. “Benoit was

restless. By the end of the journey, sleep dep-ravation had him going cuckoo.” So why on earth go through all this ? “It was the greatest adventure of our lives” he says, triumphantly.

At the time of the Gordon Bennett Cup, Bob and Benoît made history by setting a new world record, which hadn’t been done since 1912, fl ying “Miche”, their gas balloon, for over 3400 km. Yet it was only briefl y men-tioned in the media. “We were perceived as those two daft Belgian dudes. If an American team had done such a feat, they would have met the President of the United States.”

“It’s a pity because in Belgium we are not chauvinistic enough, I mean, we have the best meteorologist in the whole world and we don’t even brag about him !” Bob is referring to Luc Trullemans, with whom he’s collabo-rated for ten years, and who also guided the late Steve Fossett during his record-breaking balloon fl ight around the world in 2002.

“But I am still very proud of being Bel-gian, and to have won the cup”, Bob con-cludes. “As long as you’re in good health, having fun and fl ying, what more could one want for?” What more indeed… ( RW )


the getaway papers Royal Entry

Royal Entry

The very fi rst time I remember seeing – or indeed hearing – one was the last time I was in India. A friend of mine, who lives in the southern city of Bangalore, had just recently bought one and was oh-too-proud to present me to his gem of a motorbike. From the lit-tle I can remember, his was a Royal Enfi eld Bullet 350. Black, no nonsense.

Royal Enfi eld, a UK born and raised two-wheeler, came to India in the early 1950’s, on the back of a contract to supply the country’s army with an all-weather prone motorbike. Interestingly, the company had actually be-gun as an arms supplier to the Indian army, which explains its early slogan: “Made like a gun, runs like a bullet” and the name given to its crown jewel, the Bullet 350. Production was – and still is – located in what is today known as Chennai, with the factory quickly churning out more of the beasts than its UK counterpart. By the 1970’s, all Enfi elds were solely made in India. The company – and indeed the motorbike – is now 100% Indian-owned and is a symbol of both the country’s

liberation from its British occupiers and of its manufacturing excellence. And excellent it is.

Made out of a 100% steel, it carries with it a reputation for reliability and robustness, capa-ble of braving the most treacherous of Indian roads. And this is exactly what made it the travel companion of choice for two thrill-seek-ing Belgian brothers travelling across India.

Frédéric and Bernard Holvoet, fresh from having just seen Walter Salles’ road trip movie The Motorcycle Diaries, thought it was time they embarked on an adventure of their own, and decided upon India to begin with. “We fi rst went to Delhi, as it was very present in the news and, to be honest, had the cheapest airline tickets” says the older of the two, Bernard. “My brother had arrived a month earlier and promptly announced that he had found the perfect motorbike for our trip” he goes on.

And what a trip it was. It began by the ob-vious tourist triangle: Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. From Jaipur they went on to Udaipur and then skirted Mumbai to arrive in Goa. Once in Goa, they drove on to Hampi (“the nicest place we visited in India” they say) and ended

the trip in Bangalore and Chennai. With over 4,000kms of rugged roads, rough terrain and hard-to-navigate jungles, the Enfi eld was the only motorbike suited for such a ride. Not one puncture, not once did it breakdown and, better yet, the pair were the talk of the town wherever they went (picture two tall, handsome blond guys on the proudest thing to come out of India). Hitchhikers jumped on – and wouldn’t get off -, roadside children ran after them and they even landed a cameo appearance in a Bollywood blockbuster.

Which convinced them of the need to bring the Royal Enfi eld back to Belgium. “We brought two back after our trip, and haven’t looked back since” says Bernard. “We now customize them on demand for friends and other die-hard Enfi elders, work-ing in partnership with a mechanic we met in India.” Be it a silver fi nish, a leather-clad seat or your mother’s name on the back, if you’re looking for a ride-with-an-attitude and want to go that step further, the Holvoets are the Royal Enfi eld go-to-guys. ( NL )

www.holbikes.com


Inside Anderlecht

belgium Prison Break belgium

PrisonBreak

— "We interrupt this program for a special news bulletin”. The day is May 3rd 1993, and never before had Belgian television interrupted its regular broadcasts. But this was no regular day. Three of the country’s most notorious and hard-nosed gangsters – Philippe Lacroix, Basri Bajrami and Murat Kaplan – escaped from St. Gilles prison in Brussels, taking two hostages with them. The fi rst two were members of Belgium’s infamous “La Bande a Haemers” gang – who's leader, Patrick Haemers, had orchestrated the kidnaping of former Prime Minister Vanden Boeynants – whilst the third was later on dubbed the escape king. Breaking news, indeed.Writers Alex Deforce and Julien Mourlon

If you happened to be in front of your tel-evision on that Monday, you’d have seen the prisoners drive off in a stolen BMW, a guard held down to the top of the car, head down through the roof, his body hanging over the front window.

On the car’s backseat: inspector-general of Belgian prisons Harry Van Oers, who had volunteered to replace seven hostages. Fifteen years on and Van Oers is today re-tired but the doorbell still doesn’t spell his real name: “Nobody needs to know where I live” he says when we meet him.

The clock had just ticked past 10h30 am that morning when Jef Vanwingh, then direc-tor of St. Gilles prison, called Van Oers in his offi ce to alert him of the day’s unfolding events at his prison. “We have a riot going on” said Vanwingh “Some guards have been taken hostage by prisoners, amongst who Basri Bajrami.”

His offi ce at the time being in the shadow of the Palais de Justice, Van Oers rushed over to St. Gilles, his mind already evalu-ating the little he had in the way of options to possibly calm the situation down. His function as inspector-general meant he had already met two out of the three prisoners. What is more, he had even met Bajrami in an isolation cell – indeed, when prisons wanted to keep a convict isolated longer than nine days, the inspector-general had to be called in to judge the situation.

On his arrival at the prison gate, Van Oers found the trio holding seven members of the prison personal hostage. One guard had been stripped off his pants. This was no way to treat a man thought Van Oers. It also seemed a perfect way to gain some time: “I told Kaplan, whom I knew the best of the three, that we couldn’t talk unless the guard was given a pair of pants, so they let some-one go get some for him.”

Meanwhile, Bajrami was pointing his gun at the inspector-general. Van Oers’ self-con-fi dence had gradually increased, so while he pushed Bajrami back, his belly against the gun, he tried to calm things down: “Tosca, this is pointless, put an end to this, now.”

Calling Bajrami by his nickname was a clever mind trick, a strategic little game he’d repeat later that day. Time passed on and the gangsters were determined to see the light of day. Outside, a stolen BMW was waiting for them which the police had been ordered to ride up in front of the gate. In the heat of the moment, the riot gun hidden in the car went unnoticed…

“Kadal Murat! Kadal!” exclaimed Van Oers, telling Murat Kaplan to drive care-

fully. Two out of the three gangsters spoke Albanian and Van Oers knew just some basic expressions, but the mind trick had its effect: “I asked Lacroix” he says, “Do you under-stand Albanian? If not, how do you know they’re not setting you up when they speak a language you don’t understand?”

Van Oers thinks the main reason the gangsters kept him hostage and didn’t dump him along the road was because they needed

somebody that knew the region. After miss-ing a meeting in an underground parking in Schaarbeek the trio was nervous to leave Brussels. “I told them they were a bunch of amateurs” Van Oers tells us, with a hint of laughter. When the four fi nally left the capi-tal, arriving in Tildonk, Bajrami decided they needed cash and suggested Van Oers should rob a bank they had just pulled up by.

For the inspector-general this was natural-01.

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belgium Prison Break

ly out of the question “Guys, we can still get to Leuven Centraal, just in time for dinner to be served. Let’s go. I have an important meeting too, I wouldn’t want to miss it” said Van Oers. Bajrami wasn’t convinced: “What can you arrange for us if we surrender?” The truth was there wasn’t that much Van Oers could do. On their return the convicts would face trial, as two of them were still in deten-tion on remand. “No more than fi ve days in isolation and… a meal” answered Van Oers. Not the most convincing of deals but the three convicts forgot their bank robbery plans and decided to hide in a villa instead.

Everberg was the next stop, where they took a couple hostage whilst waiting for sun-set. The woman of the house worried about the slim Kaplan, who had been on a hunger strike before the escape. Eating was out of the question though, as Lacroix apparently advised them: “We should keep our stom-achs empty like that if anything happens to us, they can practise surgery immediately.”

As night set in, the felons decided it was time to continue their escape, leaving the

couple hostage in their own house. In a sec-ond room though, Van Oers too was tied to a bed. Before leaving, the three came to say their goodbyes and were given a word of advice: “You’ll need to start understand-ing each other better than you did in that car today”. They took 4000 Belgian francs (€100) out of his wallet: “Good night".

“Good night and good luck, see you in St.Gilles” replied Van Oers. A couple of days later he received the 4000 francs in his mail box, just as they had promised. Sur-prisingly, they had made sure to note down his address to do so.

Common prison break psychology says that escaped prisoners always return to their nest. True to form, within two weeks after their escape, the three gangsters were ar-rested close to their loved ones, in Laeken, Zellik and Skopje (Macedonia).

A couple of weeks after the escape, Van Oers received a phone call from Philippe Lacroix’s lawyer: “Monsieur Lacroix has been apprehended and doesn’t want to talk to us until he sees you.” Lacroix was held

03.

Previous Pages

01. Making a Run for It

02. Harry Van Oers

This Page

03. Brussels' Imposing St Gilles Prison

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in a cell in the Leuven Centraal prison and welcomed Van Oers in Dutch: “I just want-ed to see you and tell you I will now change my life and start studying.”

Lacroix and Bajrami were amongst the last to be given the death penalty, which was then changed to life sentences. Lacroix was released on parole after fourteen years in prison, where he got his high school degree and is now a teacher in German languages. Bajrami was expelled to Kosovo, where he now lives with his family, after sixteen years of imprisonment. Kaplan, for his part, was realeased just as we were going to press, on a seven year parole…


the word on Caravans the word on

Caravans

— If you’re starting to know us just a little, you could see this one coming. Our fascination for the lesser-known – and smaller – aspects of everyday life is no secret. Caravans – and caravan lifestyle - just happen to be one of those smaller things. Photography Sarah Eechaut

Writer Nicholas Lewis

01. Picture Perfect

02. Plants of Choice

03. Carring Holidaying

04. Number 80

05. Enclosed Serenity

06. Caravan Low-Riding

07. Window Refl ection

08. Game Park

01.

02. 06.

04. 05.

08.

03. 07.


Mister Sabena the institutionthe institution

MisterSabena

As we walk towards his house, we cannot help but notice a row of ancient airhostess uniforms hanging in the front yard. “It’s a batch I just received”, explains Christophe as he greets us. “They’ve been locked up in a trunk for over forty years and are in desperate need of aeration”. Past the entrance, we’re in for an even bigger surprise: about half a doz-en vintage mannequins dressed with fl ight attendant uniforms of every era, complete with wigs and hats, are scattered around the living-room. Some are standing, others are sitting next to Airbus replicas, but all of them have the same warm yet rigid smile.

Our host has been fascinated by aviation ever since he can remember. Growing up in Africa, Christophe boarded Sabena planes from a very young age and was always im-pressed by the quality of the service onboard and the prestige the airline carried. After graduating in tourism, he joined the Sabena crew in 1985, evolving through various sec-tors before becoming a purser on both short and long-haul fl ights. Unfortunately, his promising career was cut short when the air-line faced bankruptcy in 2001. Even though Christophe has since moved into teaching, Sabena is far from dead to this man.

No Hard Feelings

Despite good reasons to curse the airline, Christophe chose not to be bitter about his experience. “Of course I felt miserable when I lost my job”, he admits. “I loved represent-ing the airline, travelling, serving the passen-gers. I truly miss aviation and, to be honest, I miss working for Sabena. They really took great care of their staff.” And while one could wonder if the approach of his collection isn’t slightly masochistic, Christophe sets the record straight. His aim is to salvage a Belgian patrimony. “It allows me to appreciate eve-rything Sabena has done and to see it from a positive point of view.” Believing Sabena is a great symbol of Belgium that has been lost, he has set to revive the heritage left behind by the airline. “It had a huge impact on the Bel-gian economy, and although the liquidation got ugly, turning Sabena into a national em-barrassment, we must look back at the past in an intelligent way and admit the airline was and remains a prestigious institution.”

Having worked for the airline for over fi fteen years, he was able to keep interesting objects he stumbled upon. After the bank-ruptcy, a massive auction was held, where everything was sold in order to recover some funds. Christophe decided to attend the event and bought a few pieces as a souvenir, “ just for the pleasure of having beautiful

— Some people collect stamps. Others focus on watches, vinyl records or even minerals. Christophe Sckuvie has collected all of these, but decided to dedicate the past seven years of his life to a far more original theme: Sabena memorabilia. From airplane seats to old uniforms, timetables, meal trays and fi rst class silverware… he has it all.

Writer Randa Wazen


objects representing the logo”. But as he accu-mulated precious documents and rare pieces, it dawned on him that maybe he could pursue the collection on a wider scale.

As we continue the tour of his house, we discover even more gems. Like the crystal glasses used for service during the forties or the original massive painting that used to decorate the planes' fi rst class section. By the time we reach the attic, the museum vibe has cleared and it’s more like Ali Baba’s cave. The walls are covered with metallic storage cases, the same ones used in the aircrafts. But instead of being fi lled with fi rst aid kits, they contain treasures such as fi les documenting all the fl ights Sabena has ever made, photo-graphs of the very fi rst fl ight crews, Hermès scarves specially designed for onboard staff, old brochures, menus, ancient silverware and china all bearing the Sabena logo. He even still has the buttons stitched to the fi rst ever Sabena uniforms.

Speaking of which, Christophe has man-aged to gather almost every single model, keep-ing them neatly aligned on a rack. Mini dresses the airhostesses wore in the sixties, a futuristic robe designed by Courrèges from the seven-ties, sober cuts of the nineties… These uni-forms are a true testimony to fashion’s evolv-ing trends and of Sabena’s global reach, as Christophe notes, showing us a gorgeous silk sari uniform used for Asian destinations.

Give and Take

How does one manage to gather so many items? “I often snoop around markets and have been paying monthly visits to the Sabena trusteeship for the past seven years. But the best way to acquire pieces is through friends, old staff members and fellow collec-tors”, he says.

Not a great fan of marketplaces such as eBay, “you always end up fi nding the same things, which are usually overpriced”, Chris-tophe is more of a traditional market type of man. But in the end it’s really about being at the right place in the right moment.

Many of his old colleagues were kind enough to give him whatever Sabena-related objects or documents they had left. But regu-lar friends and acquaintances were also able to pitch in. “People come up to me with lit-tle things they fi nd around their houses. To them, it’s just junk cluttering the attic, but when passed on to me, those objects gain a new meaning. Every single detail counts, because it allows me to discover and learn more about the history of Sabena.” According to Christophe, it’s very simple: every item can have a lot or no value at all, depending on who’s looking at it.

Apart from being time consuming, collect-ing is also an expensive hobby. The greatest challenge Christophe has to face are his budget restrictions. “It’s tough because I’ve built this entire collection with my own funds. I often had to miss out on beautiful pieces because they were just too expensive”. This explains why he’d rather not think of how much he’s invested since the beginning of the collection. “Sometimes, I get more satisfaction getting my hands on a free but interesting document, rather than something I saw online and paid a fortune for, only to be disappointed upon de-livery”. It is not how much he’s spent, but what he owns that matters to him. One could easily imagine how devastated Christophe would be if a fi re ravaged his house, yet quite surprising-ly, the only item he would salvage is the badge he used to carry when he was still working for the airline. “It’s a part of me. The rest, no mat-ter how precious, is only material”, he smiles.

As well as its obvious aesthetic values, the collection serves an important historical purpose. Since it’s creation in 1923, Sabena has been closely infl uenced by Belgian his-

tory. This is why Christophe has chosen to classify all the items of the collection by decades and is fascinated to rediscover the history of our nation through the evolution of the airline, both on a national and inter-national level. Of course there were some dark chapters, but he believes it’s important to bare them in mind in order to keep the history alive and authentic.

Unfortunately not many people can actu-ally benefi t from the collection, and to some-one who believes in sharing, this is quite frustrating. “It is my dearest wish to make it available to the public someday. I want to share my discoveries with a wider audience, just as I already share them with my circle.” Keeping in touch with donators, great mo-ments of joy are brought to him when he can show them how he was able to mend an old uniform, or when he can provide a collec-tor with an item he has in double. A man of principle, he refuses to sell anything that was given to him. It has however occurred to him to have to sell some pieces, but only in order to buy better ones. He actually sold all of his

previous collections when he decided to focus on Sabena only. Like his Swatch wristwatches collection, which, as he states, “was one of the best and most complete in Belgium”, or his 6500 records, accumulated over the years thanks to all the travelling he did.

Our man is not interested in display-ing his collection in a museum. Instead, his dream is to create a new restaurant concept in which he could have all the items of his collection on display and would put an em-phasis on a top-notch quality service. For the true challenge of a collector, according to him, is to reach a wide and new audience. “I don’t want to aim at a clientele who al-ready knows Sabena or has fl own with it. Just as a singer might cover an old forgotten song and let a whole new generation redis-cover it with a whole new meaning, I would love to bring Sabena to a new light.” Given the correct instruments, we have no doubt he can resurrect Sabena into a brand new national anthem.

Flying High: Cristophe Sckuvie with his Sabena Concorde Replica.


Miniature Getaway Cars three of the best

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Miniature Getaway Cars

— Slowly coming to terms with the reality that is being city-bound throughout the summer holidays, we’ve had to resign ourselves to brief weekend-road-trips-for-two. And given that we haven’t just yet reached our full earnings potential, it seems we’re living the dream “extra extra small” size. With most roads the world over being overtaken by oversized SUV’s (and egos), we couldn’t wait to hit the road with these humbler alternatives. Here we bring you the Meanest, Proudest and Smoothest of highway roadsters… without forgetting the Cutest.Writer Nicholas Lewis

3. BMW’s 6 Series CoupéName We Gave It

The Smoothest

Designed By

Nader Faghizadeh

Horse Power

286

Top Speed

286 km/hour

0 to 100km/hour

Acceleration

6.2 Seconds

Best Enjoyed

In Munich

Best Alternative To

German IC Trains

4. Mini Cooper SName We Gave It

The Cutest

Designed By

Mini Munich

Horse Power

115

Top Speed

193 km/hour

0 to 100km/hour

Acceleration

9.8 Seconds

Best Enjoyed

Italian Job-Style

Best Alternative To

A City Bike

1. Mercedes-Benz’s SLR McLaren CoupéName We Gave It

The Meanest

Designed By

Mercedes Germany

Horse Power

626

Top Speed

334km/hour

0 to 100km/hour

Acceleration

3.8 Seconds

Best Enjoyed

With a Pinch of Salt

Best Alternative To

A Lear Jet

2. Porsche’s 911 GT2Name We Gave It

The Proudest

Designed By

Porsche AG Design Studio

Horse Power

530

Top Speed

329 km/hour

0 to 100km/hour

Acceleration

3.7 Seconds

Best Enjoyed

On a Sunny Sunday Afternoon

Best Alternative To

A Yacht in St Tropez


TheFugitives

— Part nostalgia, part modern-day indulgences, this new section to The Word highlights our pick of essential, theme-specifi c goodies. Be it that most ubiquitous of little blue tins or round-the-world clockworks, we’re packing them up getaway-style.


Photography Opération Panda

The Fugitives showstoppersshowstoppers

02.Hangover Shades

When we spotted these shades in Nathalie

Bladt's Leuven outpost, we knew they’d

prove to be a futile consolation when

considering the fact that we’d probably only

get to show them off at Bruxelles-les-Bains.

At least we’ll do so in style.

Left www.paulsmith.co.uk Right www.tomford.com

03.Offi cially not a Cliché

What can you say that hasn’t already been

said about the most iconic of camera

brands? Making as fi ne a job in the digital

sphere as it did – and still does – in the

analogue one, revered and adored Leica

remains the Hermes of photography, one cut

above the rest. It's D-Lux 3 is no exception.

www.leica.com

04.Takeaway Tea

What more could you want than having your

very own dose of green tea wherever a cup

of boiling water is available. Although nor-

mally part of a degustation set, we’ve opted

to adapt these to suit our constant thirst for

the green stuff. The liquid that is.

www.palaisdesthes.com

01.Still so Strong They Hurt

Although they somehow seem as familiar as

that puffy Michelin man, we had bizarrely

never physically held a pack of Fisherman’s

Friend until we made them showstopping

essentials. We did, however, instantly relate

to their distinctive and sturdy packaging

and slight retro-aesthetic. This could be

our equivalent to what most City of London

investment bankers do – holding the FT just

for show, even if they don’t read it – and in

our case, need it.

www.fi shermansfriend.com


showstoppers The Fugitives

06.Brunch in L.A =

Cocktail Hour in Paris

It might not be the easiest to read and is

probably not the most affordable but it sure

is the most original and ingenious time-teller

we’ve recently come across. Artecnica’s

KnoWhere Clock – available in three dif-

ferent versions – takes personalisation to a

whole new level, putting aside more conven-

tional ways of thinking of far-fl ung loved ones

in favour of a far simpler alternative: marking

the cities in which they live in on the clock’s

hands. How cute.

www.artecnicainc.com

05.The Original Tin

Iconic and ever-present, Nivea’s blue tin

is as much part of our everyday lives as

Brussels' horrendous traffi c. Timeless in its

design and radical in its simplicity, the tin

– launched in 1924 – was the fi rst skincare

cream to be brought to the masses, part

of an ambitious brand image revamp at the

company’s German headquarters. Having

grown up with it, and being pretty confi dent

you did to, it only seemed natural to make it a

getaway staple.

www.nivea.com


lifestyle

Bag Lady

Bag Lady lifestyle

— We’ve been known to be somewhat of an intruding bunch and our Bag Lady shoot most defi nitely confi rms this. Indeed, we couldn’t help but wonder what feminine curiosities were thrown, squashed, folded, dumped, squandered and sometimes for-ever-lost in the deep and chaotic Pandora’s boxes that are ladies’ bags… and frequent travelling ladies at that. Photography Opération Panda

I mostly travel for work, inspiration and holidays with my family. I recently re-turned from a working trip to China as we opened our second store there in Shanghai.

I mostly travel with Kate, my head of press and marketing, Lisa my head of sales, both my very close friends and for holidays with my husband. They all keep me sane.

I mostly travel to work from home.

My fi rst memory of taking the plane goes

back to travelling throughout Europe with my family as a child.

My fondest travel memory is Cap Ferrat as it is there that I married my husband James and we have had a home there all of my life.

The longest I ever travelled for is London – Tokyo – New York.

The one thing I never leave the country

without is my loose pockets. I designed these leather pouches to keep my bag organised.

I mostly travel for leisure and business. Since I was a child, I have been lucky to travel to different countries. My parents believed that going to different countries would make me learn about other cultures, their traditions, heritage and ways of life.

I mostly travel by plane. The only excep-tion is when I travel to Brussels or Paris, when I take the Eurostar or Thalys.


back to when I was eight years old. It was the day that we were permanently moving from Kyrghistan to Belgium, right on the day the Soviet Union collapsed.

I mostly travel within Europe, places like Brussels, Paris, Milan, Nice, etc. I also often travel to cities such as Moscow and Almaty (Kazakhstan).

The longest I ever travelled was for three months straight, during school summer holidays.


without is my passport, my I pod and my Gucci Rush perfume.

The airport I try to avoid is Heathrow. It is by far the worst place to fl y from or arrive to.

My most dreaded travel nightmare is get-ting my baggage lost.

What's in the Bag

Time Out Brussels, Net-a-Porter’s S/S 2008

look book, Royal College of Art invitation,

Karaoke with the Stars invitation, Eve Lom’s

Kiss Mix, Cutler and Gross Aviators,

Anya Hindmarch handbag Coin Purse

and Small Mirror.

All pictured in a Anya Hindmarch handbag.

What's in the Bag

IPod, Chanel Coin Purse, Wrigley’s

Extra Ice Gum, 33cl Bottle of Evian,

Gucci Rush Perfume, Belgian Passport,

Milan to Brussels Airline Ticket, Diorskin

Airfl ash Spray Foundation, Guerlain

Foundation, Blackberry Pearl, Nokia Phone,

Hair Pin, Mac Bronzing Powder, Handy

Andies Pocket Tissues, One Set of Keys.

All pictured in a Burberry handbag.

My favorite way to travel is in a vintage car. Preferably an old 1968 Porsche in pea green.

The airport I try to avoid is Heathrow air-port – such a bad fi rst (or last) impression of the UK.

My most dreaded travel nightmare is being away from my family for too long.

Anya Hindmarch

British-born accessories designer Anya

Hindmarch caused a storm in the UK last

year with her I’m not a Plastic Bag carrier

bag made exclusively for supermarket chain

Sainsbury’s. She has, over the last few

years, been expanding her business on a

global scale and has just opened a boutique

in Brussels’ Chatelain area.

Anna Machkevitch

Anna was born in Kirgizstan and is of Jewish,

Ukrainian and Russian origin. She grew

up in Brussels and today splits her time

between Moscow and London, where she

is an aspiring fashion designer. We caught

up with her on her way back to London from

Milan.


lifestyle Bag Lady

I mostly travel to go somewhere…

I mostly travel with two pair of shoes per day.

I mostly travel to Paris, from Brussels.


back to my mothers’ belly (I can't remem-ber my fi rst travel by airplane !)

The longest I ever travelled for is to Zimbabwe for my honeymoon.


without is my overfl owing bag!

My favorite way to travel is by train.

The airport I try to avoid is Zanzibar (some-one told me that they were too many crashes there).

My most dreaded travel nightmare is being without my girls.

My bag is my home. I’d like to believe that I could survive with it for at least a month even when travelling for a day.

What's in the bag

Elodie Hesme’s ‘Et Ma Vie pour Tes Yeux

Lentement S’Empoisonne’, One Receipt

for a Paris Taxi, Moleskine Notebook,

Marc Jacobs Purse, Ricoh GX Digital Camera,

Mer du Nord Sunglasses, Elizabeth Arden’s

Eight Hour Cream, Mulberry Agenda

and a range of color pens.

All pictured in a Gerard Darel handbag.

Tania Garbarski

Tania is an actor of Polish-Jewish and

Belgian origin. She lives in Brussels with

her husband and their two girls and splits

her time between Brussels and Paris. She

was in Word favorite Bunker Paradise and

is set to play in Gad Elmaleh’s next movie

‘Coco’.


the photo album

Seaside Belgium

— We recently stumbled upon quite a treasure-trove at Brussels’ fl ea market: three huge boxes fi lled with a load of blasts from the past. Belgians at table, Belgians shopping, Belgians and their families, Belgians smiling, Belgians arguing… our favorite for this issue though: Belgians at the Seaside.

Pictures chosen with nothing but love

for the national DNA.

Seaside Belgium the photo album


the fashion word

We’re hitting the road heavy-duty style this summer with a rough yet sensual aesthetic befi tting the most rugged of territories – and engines.

Photography Lalo Gonzalez

Fashion Jennifer Defays

Previous Page.Chesterfi eld Coat, Waist Coat, Bow Tie Attachement & Shirt Veronique Branquinho,

Trousers Rykiel Homme, Boots Hermes

Above.Her — Blouse Jean Paul Knott, Trousers Hermes, Ring Vintage

Sister — Dress Vintage

Him — Jacket and Shirt Filippa K, Trousers Maison Martin Margiela Jumper Dress Limi Feu, Shoes Christian Louboutin

Her — Dress Jean Paul Knott

Him — Tee-Shirt Yohji Yamamoto, Jumper Hermes, Trousers Rykiel Homme, Sunglasses Chanel

Chesterfi eld Coat, Waist Coat, Bow Tie Attachement & Shirt Veronique Branquinho

Blazer Agnes b, Shirt Marc Jacobs, Trousers Juun J., Boots Hermes

Dress Sharon Wauchob, Hat Sonia Rykiel

Isle Sweater Hermes, Trousers & Gloves Yohji Yamamoto, Travel Bag Samsonite Black Label, Briefcase Delvaux

Her — Dress Sonia Rykiel

Him — Jacket CK, Trousers Hermes

Photographer

Lalo Gonzalez

www.claudia-trucco.com

Assistants

Yenci Kiss

Jonas Van Schoote

Stylist

Jennifer Defays

@ Vision Talent Management

Hair & Make Up

Eleonore Nataf

Models

Jenna @ Micha Models

Bénédicte Bantuelle

Mark Marlon @ Dominique Models

With thanks to

Valérie Radelet

Jean Jacques Radelet

Her — Top Jean Paul Knott, Trousers Hermes, Ring Vintage

Sister — Dress Vintage

Him — Blazer Agnes b, Shirt Marc Jacobs, Trousers Juun J., Boots Hermes

Road Works the fashion word


The Great Outdoors

The Great Outdoors the gearthe gear

— In retrospect, it does sound pretty ambitious. Three hiking fi rst-timers – more of the city than country type - set out one Saturday morning for Belgium’s Ardennes, determined to have themselves a back-to-the-roots weekend. Armed with the best in hiking gear and accessories – and more than enough of that penguin beer – they were confi dent this somehow made up for their total lack of experience when it came to the great outdoors — except for their scouting years of course. Here’s what their campsite looked liked…Photography Yassin Serghini


Production Melisande McBurnie

What was in the Bag

‘White Flyweight Tote’ by The North Face and ‘Red First Aid Kit Professional’ by Travel Health Care Products in a ‘Backtrack’ Backpack by The North Face, all from A.S.Adventures.

What was in the Tent

Blue Mattress by Thermarest and Sleeping Bag by Valandré, all from Entre Terre et Ciel. ‘West’ Shirt by Jack & Jones, ‘Brooklyn’ Shorts by Tommy Hilfi ger, ‘Red K-Way’ by K-Way Plus and Reversible ‘Delux’ Hoodie by Jack & Jones, all from A.S.Adventures.‘Tadpole 23’ Tent by The North Face, from Entre Terre et Ciel.

What was Around the Camp

Torch by LED Lenser, ‘Trek Mates’ Blue Water Bottle, ‘Hurricane’ Matches, ‘Relags’ Stainless Steel Mug, ‘Captain Stag’ Super Light Cutlery Set, ‘Recta’ DS 50G Compass by Global System, ‘Pocket Knife’ by Leatherman, all from Entre Terre et Ciel. Burma Pro MFS Hiking Boots by Meindl, Medina Birkenstocks, Trekking TK 4 Expedition Socks by Falke, 3x Topographic Maps by the National Geographic Institute, all from A.S.Adventures.

The Little that Actually was Ours

‘Bird Spotting’ by John Holland, The Outsider by Albert Camus and ‘Being Somebody, Going Somewhere’ by Ayya Khema. Vedett Beer.


from a to z

TakingThe Lot

Art

"We do only fi ne arts and antiques, all our trucks are climate controlled, and have special GPS in case the truck gets hijacked and we need to trace it. We need to remain discreet and below the radar; we don't even have a website. Sometimes people ask for security, either visible with a police escort, or done discreetly with un-marked vans. It’s diffi cult to say when that kind of require-ment kicks in – it’s always up to the client.

The safest place for artwork is hanging on the wall; during transport the piece is at its most vulnerable, security wise and climati-cally. The crates that we make are specially designed– the right kind of wood, the den-sity of the foam, the thickness of the foam, there’s a science to making sure the inside of the crate holds the right temperature and humidity during the duration of the trans-port. Some pieces are more vulnerable to humidity and temperature change – paint-ings on wood panel should be approached differently than paintings on canvas.

— It’s the age-old problem – you’ve pulled off the ultimate heist, but now you have to get the stuff out of the country. We ask the experts how to transport the world’s most diffi cult objects, from fragile artefacts to radioactive materials and human organs. Interviews Hettie Judah

Photography Erwin Borms & Sarah Michielsen at Outlandish

We deal with a lot of fragile 3-D pieces, as small as a thimble to something as large as a 7 or 8 metre, 4 ton sculpture. The goal is for each piece to arrive in the same state it left, without any changes in the condition of the object. Some of the most diffi cult things aren’t that large.

There’s a really large community of col-lectors of African art in Belgium, in some pieces the wood still secretes oil so the whole object is basically sticky. You need to be able to stabilise a piece in a crate, with a piece that’s a foot high and sticky everywhere it is very diffi cult to try to fi nd out where to

hold it, we often end up supporting from top and bottom. Or we get some African pieces made of raffi a that is so fragile that it can no longer support it’s own weight, and we have to make a special structure. Paintings are pretty straightforward to pack, but there are 10,000 ways to pack a piece but only one or two will be right.

You hear stories in the industry and thank your lucky stars it’s not you – luckily our team are the best in the business and we’ve never had a bad situation."

01+ 02. Exhibits From Jurgen Bey's

Recent Exhibition Arriving

at Pierre Bergé, Brussels© S

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© S

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01.

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Taking The Lot from a to z

" During transport

the piece is at its

most vulnerable "Keith Brumberg,

Maertens Art Packers and Shippers.


Taking The Lot from a to zfrom a to z Taking The Lot

Body Parts

"Belgium is part of Eurotransplant – an or-ganisation that covers Belgium, The Nether-lands, Germany, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia and Luxembourg. Whenever there is an or-gan available, the characteristics of the donor are put into a computer system, then medical allocation rules say where the kidney has to go. If we have a donor in Belgium a procure-ment team goes in priority cars to the hospital. There are two ways of transporting a kidney, either cold storage; in a plastic bag with fl uid, sterile packed and on ice for transportation, or by using a LifePort® machine which is more sophisticated, although it is still on trial.

The organs need to be cooled down in the donor with specifi c preservation fl uids be-fore they are taken out surgically. The kidney can only be packed ready for transport once this 2-3 hour surgery has been done.

Then the timeline starts to be more criti-cal. The organ is in a hibernation situation, the kidney is in a ischaemical condition – that means without any oxygen supply. When optimally preserved at 4̊ C, a kidney can stay about 24 hours out of the body without any oxygen supply. So, within 24 hours the kidney needs to be transplanted somewhere within the region. We try to put it in transport as quickly as we can – if the place is close we do it by car. There are no strict regulations, but it is very important that every part of the process is well documented and scanned. We have a dedicated team of drivers, they follow it up on the computers so we can always state who did what, when and where.

When it’s further away – say Vienna – we look into putting the kidney on a regular scheduled fl ight. It is driven to the airport, then delivered to the cargo company of the airline that is fl ying the kidney, Lufthansa, for example.

Time-wise the kidney is the easiest organ to transport because you have 24 hours of transit time. For a heart, liver or lung you only have 4 to 10 hours. In that case, the distance stays the same but the transport vector chang-es. If I’m transporting a heart I take a priority car from Leuven then a private jet from out-side Brussels to Vienna which takes one hour and 20 minutes, then a priority car in Vienna to the hospital. Once we have removed the organ, the critical ischaemical time is very signifi cant. We send our own teams to be able to control the whole process from removing to placing in the recipient. When we take out a heart in Vienna, at time point 0, four hours later it has to be replaced and working again inside the recipient. Removal and transporta-

tion has to be done within four hours. After all the fl ying and driving you have about one hour left to put a heart in.

We use a company that can tell us very quickly if they can give us a fl ight or not. People know that it’s about saving a life, so they’ll do as much as they can to put you airborne as quickly as possible. In extreme circumstances you can always knock on the door of the army."

Dangerous Goods

“We offer a whole package; if you want to send something radioactive from Belgium to Romania we coordinate everything from your warehouse to the fi nal destination. We recondition and manage everything regard-ing the packing and repacking of dangerous goods, following appropriate regulations and the special licences for the different govern-ments. We don’t actually re-pack goods from Class 7 and Class 1 apart from car airbags that come under Class 1 as explosives.

The category of Dangerous Goods in-cludes things as common as every day as

This Page

03. Ready to go: The LifePort® Kidney

Transporter

Next Page

04. Dangerous Goods

05. DGM's Out-of-Size Packaging

03.

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perfume, which is considered dangerous for transport by air because it’s fl ammable, or house paint or cleaning materials. A car sent by air would be considered to contain fl am-mable combustion materials.

We rarely turn things down; it would only happen if, for example, a shipper wants to send something without following regulations.

We have coordinated the transport of weapons. A few months ago there was a spe-cial military parade in Ypres for the soldiers that died in WWI. We coordinated the transport of weapons from the Australian and New Zealand armies to Belgium and made sure all regulations were followed. Be-cause they were war materials we had them accompanied by an unmarked car. They came through Germany by air, from Ger-many they took off and we took over when the shipment crossed the Belgian border and made sure that all the certifi cates were there and everything was well documented.

Each means of transport has its own regula-tions and the drivers need special training; we do give courses here. But there are only a few transport companies that can take explosives.”

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" There are no strict

regulations, but it is very

important that every part

of the process is well

documented

and scanned "

Frank Van Gelder,

Senior Transplant Coordinator,

University Hospital Leuven.

" There are only a few

transport companies that

can take explosives "Michael Haest,

Customer and Operations Manager, DGM.


Wrapper'sDelight

— How are traditional pieces that travellers used to bring home in their backpacks making their way into the collections of high-end design companies? Writer Hettie Judah

Photography Opération Panda

Wrapper's Delight designdesign

Rustic earthenware bowls, tribal bead-work, Delft figurines, hand knitted socks and recycled glassware are products that in another era (one that ended perhaps two years ago) would have been natural shelf-mates to rampant spider-plants, the smell of too many cats and that worrying library of tantric sex manuals that characterises the décor of eccentric aunts the world over. Over the last couple of seasons, these es-capees from the worlds of folk craft and ethnic furnishings have taken up residence on some of the most high-status shelves in the design world.

Created by hand using traditional skills, they are pungent with traces of the people and places that formed them. They are the

antithesis, in other words, of the affordable, internationally homogenised modernism made available to the mass market through IKEA and its imitators.

Thanks in part to the superb marketing skills of the Swedish furnishing giant we have grown accustomed to a complete vision of the domestic interior equipped entirely with modern, tasteful products that present a unifi ed image. But companies at the risk-taking edge of the design industry have started to feel that this universe of slick good taste has run its course and that it is time to start engaging again with the real world.

“50 years ago there were still a lot more handmade products in the shops,” says Dutch-born designer Tord Boontje. “People

decided they wanted a cleaner environment. They started opening design shops and fi ll-ing them with clean products. That worked for a while, but now people are starting to realise that it has become plastic and bland and anonymous and we lost something, I think there is an openness now that wasn’t there a few years ago.”

Bootje can claim no strong objection to the mass market – a few years ago he pro-duced a collection for the American budget chain Target – but his work has always been marked by his interest in folk iconography. It was in a way Boontje’s interest in the tra-ditional combined with his mass appeal that formed the basis for what one might call the Slow Design movement.

Backpacking with Blueprints

In 2004, the Californian design company Artecnica produced two successful design projects with Boontje, the multi-award win-ning Midsummer Light and the Fairy Tail greeting card. Boontje had started work on a design project coordinated by the British Council who had paired him up with a wom-en’s collective in Brazil called Copa Roca. The project resulted in a lampshade design – Come Rain Come Shine – which featured tra-ditional embroidery and ropework set around a circular metal frame. Boontje asked Artec-nica if they could produce it commercially.

Come Rain Come Shine was not Artec-nica’s fi rst dalliance with traditionally made products. The year before they had sent stu-dents from Eindhoven's Design Academy to Brazil to work with artisans, but attempts to turn the resulting pieces into commercially viable products had failed. “It was really hard,” recalls Artecninca’s art director Tah-mineh Javanbakht. “The prices were really high and we weren’t the kind of company that could demand that. In 2003/4 the market wasn’t ready for it. And the artisans weren’t really set up, they didn’t have the logistics for something as simple as getting boxes or fi lling out commercial invoices.”

By the time Boontje approached them, Artecnica felt that they had learned enough of the pitfalls to give such a scheme another try, this time with the draw of a big name designer to help push the idea along. The success of these lamps was the basis of Artecnica’s Design with Conscience™ range: pieces by Boontje, the Campaña Brothers, Hella Jongerius and Stephen Burks that are developed with, and made by artisans in South Africa, Vietnam and Central and South America.

Boontje’s latest collection for the label is Witches’ Kitchen, a kitchenware set centred around black clay pots imprinted with local leaves and fl owers. The pots are based on a traditional Colombian design, although due to their appeal, knock-off versions are now available all over South America, putting fi -nancial strain on the original artisans. “We wanted to make something that was more special and would make them more money,” explains Boontje. “A high quality product was a way of getting out of this negative cir-cle.” He felt that his role as a product design-er was to maintain the traditional knowledge that went into making the pots while making them more appropriate for the modern mar-ket. For example, the pots were now more likely to be placed in an oven than hung over an open fi re, so he changed the handles to make them easier to carry.

Deep as Boontje’s commitment is to fos-tering a properly collaborative process with artisans, he is under no illusions of the im-portance of his role in the process. “If the traditional products had such great appeal to us we would be surrounded by them al-ready,” he says. “There is a real need to make this translation.”

From Boontje’s perspective, Artecnica’s reputation as a design brand allowed these pieces to slip onto the design market by the back door. Talking with Javanbakht at Artecnica, however, it becomes clear that the success of the Design with Conscience™ range is down not only to labels but also to a simple factor of timing. “When we started it fi rst, people were sceptical. They said the

project was dandy, but only for a hippy niche market,” she recalls. “About 2 years ago it was unthinkable to imagine that certain people would trade in an SUV for a small hybrid car. Now gas prices have changed that. Four years ago wholefood was a very niche market, Wholefood is now one of the most formidable chains in America. With awareness comes interest.”

01. Casserole with Lid from the Witches'

Kitchen Series by Tord Boontje for

Artecnica, wrapped in the Financial Times.

02. Small Bowl from the Beads and Pieces

Series by Hella Jongerius for Artecnica,

wrapped in Peru's El Peruano.

01. 02.


design Wrapper's Delight

How Travel Broadens The Mind

Interest in Slow Design products is not lim-ited to the crunchy granola crowd. It also connects strongly into the interest generated by the Campaña brothers’ ‘spontaneous architecture’ and favela-inspired junkyard furniture. This is not simply the desire to create something sustainable, but a search for a new approach to design that goes be-yond the constant cannibalisation of Euro-pean and North American design history.

“It’s really time that we look outside of Europe for inspiration and for business de-velopment,” says designer Stephen Burks. “The work has to transform, it has to become a combination of the contemporary design aesthetic and the developing world aesthetic. The point for me is not to borrow from the de-veloping world but to invest in innovation.”

Burks had built up his own design studio in New York - Readymade Projects – and with it an international reputation by the time he fi rst worked with artisans in South Africa on a series of patchwork-covered vas-es for Missoni in 2005. Two years later he worked with the NGO Aid to Artisans and Artecnica to create TaTu, a wire table that breaks down into a bowl, a tray and a basket. “In South Africa I saw how immediate design

could be and how unstylised it was. People are more interested in the material and the way things go together. It really changed my perspective on what I was making. I felt my-self more connected to process than form.”

This season, together with Guilio Cap-pellini, Burks has launched a new eco-conscious design range called Cappellini Love. The fi rst collection includes tables made from shredded magazines and vases and bowls made from mosaic tiles and sili-cone. The process is one that he developed together with the women’s community centre that now produces the vases. For Burks, this foray by the high end Italian manufacturer into the Slow Design market is more than just an exercise in bandwagon jumping. “In the high end design world where the distribution numbers aren’t as high as in mass design there’s a possible fi t between what can be made by hand and what can be distributed in a certain market,” he explains.

For this to work, design-literate consum-ers need to start extending the same appreci-ation they feel towards, for example, Italian leather workers, to artisans from elsewhere in the world. Just as Tord Boontje pointed out a gathering ennui with the bland and mass- produced, Burks urges a return to the

more omnivorous roots of modernism. “In my opinion there doesn’t have to be any type of division. The way that I live and the prod-ucts that I’m interested in all have diverse or-igins; I might have a Danish sofa and a Brit-ish shelving unit and tons of little items with more personality. If you look at the Eames’ house, you’ll see that this is really returning to the pluralistic vision of modernism. If we travel the world we realise that it is full of people making things in different ways.”

While the pieces in the Cappellini Love collection, with their fl aunted recyled com-ponents, are very much of their time, unlike the pieces Burks designed for Artecnica, they do not seem to have a particular sense of place. If anything, their aesthetic reference point seems more Italian than South African. Never the less, when Burks refers to ‘little items with more personality’, one imagines things that really brandish who and where they come from. Authenticity has a market value these days, and the big test of authentic-ity is being able to demonstrate your origins.

03. Bowl from the Cappellini Love

Collection by Stephen Burks

for Cappellini, wrapped in South Africa's

Mail and Guardian.

03.

Tell Me Something About Your Country

Delftware does not fi t in to the modern Dutch self-image. As it exists in the popular imagi-nation, the decorated blue crockery strikes bull’s eye shots at all the old low-country clichés; blonde milkmaids, tulips, shepherd boys, clogs and canal boats. Delftware came into its own in the mid C17th century after the supply of Chinese porcelain to the Eu-ropean market was interrupted; with some poetry, one imagines that the Delftware- style tat now being sold to tourists is reliably imported from factories in China.

“I have tons of countrymen who hate it if Holland is again represented using tu-lips, cheese and cows,” says designer Marcel Wanders. “I don’t have a problem with it, I don’t mind using the symbols myself. I think by now people know Holland has some other things to offer.” Delftware has come in to Wanders’ personal design collection this year, as well as the collection for his label Moooi. For the fi rst, a Delft fi gurine has become the victim of one of Wanders’ ‘one minute’ paint jobs – the insouciant shep-herd boy receives a blue splattering that is either genius or infantile (or both) depend-ing on what worth you put on a piece being touched by the hand of the master.

The collection available from Moooi is offi cially produced by Royal Delft and is by turns an elegant and daffy update on the company’s traditional output. Wanders is not just paying reverent homage to his coun-try’s artisan heritage, but neither is he just cocking a snoop at Delft’s settled, somewhat stale image.

“In design we have tried to be very indus-trial, democratic and international,” says Wanders of his work with Moooi. “There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think it took away a little bit of the personality of objects, it took away a bit of their life. We are looking at ways for the industry to create things that have a certain uniqueness.”

Wanders equates design with giving gifts; a considered gift should always say as much about the giver as it does the receiver. It is a point of communication. “Design is so fabulous because it is an international lan-guage,” he enthuses. “We can communicate with people all over the world, but what are we communicating? What are we going to give? Some parts of our local tradition and some qualities we have are very interesting to work with and give away. Delft Blue is such a beautiful part of our cultural history and this company is still there.”

Two years ago 50% of Moooi was bought by B&B Italia. During this year’s Salone del

Mobile, this most Italian of design com-panies was proudly displaying the Moooi Delftware fi gurines in its central Milan showroom. Wanders and Moooi have come beyond being defi ned by their Dutch roots; both the man and the marque are proper international brands. It is hardly surprising that it has become attractive to re-connect with a form of production that is slow, hand-made and above all, local.

This Page

04. 1 Minute Delftware Farmer

by Marcel Wanders Studio,

should have been wrapped in

Holland's Volkskrant.

Next Page

05. Starfl ower Blue Rug

by Barber Osgerby for The Rug Company,

wrapped in Nepal's Nepali Patra.

04.

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Wrapper's Delight design


I Love it When a Plan Cocks Up

Coming in to the entrance hall of the Royal Institute of British Architects in London, you are greeted by a desk so perfect that it might be projected by the digital effects department of a big budget sci-fi fi lm. It’s an undulating wallop of hi-gloss curves, a stable form created from apparently liquid metal. The work of Jay Barber and Edward Osgerby, it is an immaculate expression of the pair’s perfectionist output. This year they presented a series of tables for Estab-lished & Sons in machined aluminium that was anodised to create colour spectrums – in tones of green, blue, grey, red and pink - as individual as the human iris, but impec-cably controlled.

“Our process comes from a background of working with engineers,” say the pair, who trained together as architects before setting up a design studio in West London. “With plastics and metals you are looking at things down to the last quarter millimetre.”

Three years ago they started creating car-pet designs for The Rug Company, a Lon-don based fi rm that produces hand-knotted rugs with Tibetan refugees living in Nepal. The Starburst pattern is a two-dimensional rendering of a 3-D tile that they created for Stella McCartney’s stores. In its rug form it

becomes a study in tone on tone colour, but also relates strongly to traditional geometri-cal patterns from the Islamic tradition.

Working on the rug, the designers had to learn to embrace a number of random elements; the weaver’s interpretation, the variations in the colour of the dye, and the potential for simple human error. “In mass production you don’t get that warmth that you get in wood or a carpet,” explains Jay Osgerby. “With anything that has a natural aspect to it, you get an inherent warmth. You also get that serendipitous quality that comes from working with someone else. When you have one guy hand knotting a carpet, you can’t reproduce that industri-ally, it adds depth to a project.”

Working on their Cupola table for the Meta collection this year, Barber Osgerby found that it is not only in collaborations with the developing world that you must learn to accept the beauty of chance. It also comes when working with the fi nest artisans in Europe. Their table features two vast hand-blown glass bulbs, one in turquoise blue which forms the base, and the other in translucent opaline white which provides the shade of the reading lamp. “The maestros can interpret the drawing quite accurately,” ex-plains Edward Barber. “But even they can’t

always predict what the glass is going to do; the fl aws give it the depth and the interest.”

In mass production, there simply isn’t space for serendipitous cock-ups– you need some-thing predictable and immaculate. The place for chance comes where you can produce a small number of editions, which for design-ers of this calibre, means they are destined for high-end consumers, whether the artisans they work with are in Kathmandu or Venice. “At one end of the market people are tired of buying things that are very samey,” says Ed-ward Barber. “I guess people do want to have things that talk about place; they’re in search of something that is more authentic.”

Consume Furniture Like You Consume Food

The relationship between traditional pro-duction and high-end design need be no more jarring than that of scientifi cally-in-spired chef nevertheless insisting on tradi-tionally produced ingredients. One can con-tribute to and enhance the other. As with the return to quality ingredients and ‘real’ meat, the emergence of the Slow Design movement marks a shift towards the idea of consuming better and consuming less. Better, in this in-stance, meaning not simply ethically better, but better made, better developed and bet-ter rooted.

05.

design Wrapper's Delight


Booking YourGetaway

— From intricate illustrations to cubic invasions and in-the-know suggestions, our summer reading promises to be a stimulating – and sometimes frankly childish - companion to poolside cocktails (with tiny little umbrellas that is) and half-opened parasols. Writer Nicholas Lewis


Booking Your Getaway shelf absorbedshelf absorbed

This Is London (1959), This is New York

(1960) and This is Rome (1960)

By Miroslav Sasek

Universe

Although he had initially began his profes-sional life as a painter, Czech-born writer and illustrator Miroslav Sasek is best known for his This Is series of books, for which he won several awards - one of which was the prestigious New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year in 1959. Welcomingly light on words although extremely detailed in im-agery, the series – a whopping 18 issues strong - offers a kind of Catch Me If You Can rendi-tion of most major cities. Spanning the entire globe - from Wahington DC to Venice and Edinburgh – his books offer a much-needed alternative to weekend city-trips whilst in the comfort of your own home. We've gone for London, New York and Hong-Kong…

L’Affolé de son Art (2008)

By Katsushika Hokusai

Musée Guimet

A self-proclaimed “Art-crazy old man”, Hokusai was a prolifi c painter who mastered the art of Japanese woodblock printing. His most famous picture – The Great Wave – is widely regarded as the high point of Japanese prints and depicts fi shermen being tossed around by a gigantic breaking wave with Mt. Fuji lurking in the background. Published in time for a fi tting retrospective of the artist’s work at Paris’s National Mu-seum for Asian Art, the book is a beautifully and respectfully produced volume sure to adorn the most high-browed of libraries.

Invasion in the U.K (2007)

By Space Invader

ED

We’ve been fervent followers of the mighty Space Invader from his early days in Paris but this here street cat has now offi cially gone glo-bal. From Berlin and Bangkok to Mombassa and Montpelier, there isn’t a stone left unturned by Mr Invader – literally that is. Applying his pixel-perfect mosaics to the most obscure yet visible of spots, Space Invaders’ cemented canvases seem to effortlessly blend into its sur-roundings, as though they were always meant to be there – and fi rmly stay there. His lat-est book, Invasion in the U.K, documents his many hits in London, Manchester and New-castle, and confi rms this most hard-working of street artist’s wizardry – both in his choice of medium and his choice of spots to hit.

Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far

(2008)

By Stefan Sagmeister

Abrams

We’re still not entirely sure whether it was the book’s ingenious set of 15 interchange-able covers which drew us to it or whether it was its profoundly personal and intimate content. Either way, this is one gem worth spending a couple of hours contemplating on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Begun as a list Swiss graphic designer Sagmeister kept in his diary, the book includes such sentences as “Worrying solves nothing” and “Trying to look good limits my life”. He then set out to illustrate his random thoughts through what can only be described as “installation graphic design”. One that is sure to become a fi rm fi xture on the offi ce coffee table.

Louis Vuitton

European City Guides

(2008)

Some books are best described with hard facts. A set of nine soft-back guides. Over 34 European cities featured. More than 1,800 pages fi lled with the continent’s best hotels, restaurant, cafés, art galleries, museums, shops, monuments and excursions. Exten-sively researched, immaculately laid out and beautifully produced. It is offi cial: we have fi nally found a viable alternative to those other stylish city guides we cannot name for obvious reasons.

<— From Left to Right:

Artists’ Handbook by Ludion,

Miroslav Sasek’s This Is London, This Is New

York and This Is Hong Kong,

Man About Town’s Spring/Summer ’08 Issue,

Hokusai’s L’Affolé de son Art,

Carl’s Cars' Environment Issue,

Space Invader’s Invasion in the U.K, 032C’s

Spring/Summer ’08 Issue, Stefan Sagmeister’s

Things I have Learned in my Life So Far,

Louis Vuitton’s European City Guides,

photographed on Grundig's all-in-one stereo.

All books available from Cook & Book

www.cookandbook.be

©Y

ass

in S

erg

hin

i


TheGarden BBQ

The Garden BBQ diners' checkdiners' check

Who Was There

Malika Hamza is a chef and founding member of Karikol, the Brussels branch of the slow food movement.

Justine Glansfi eld is a former knitwear designer for Burberry and Burberry Pror-sum, she has just opened a Bed & Breakfast and is about to become an interior decorator.

Vincent Fournier is a photographer. His most recent show Space Project was on at Acte2galerie in Paris last month.

Marie Henrard is an aspiring architect. She is Delphine’s friend.

Melisande McBurnie is a friend of Het-tie's and is quickly becoming The Word's go-to-girl.

Delphine Dupont is, together with pleaseletmedesign, responsible for the graphic design side of the magazine.

Benoit Berben is our much-needed mon-eyman. He likes his meat well-cooked.

Sarah Eechaut is quickly becoming known as our cover girl, as every picture she takes for us always seems to end up on it. She was in charge of visuals.

Hettie Judah writes for the weekend edi-tions of The Financial Times and The Inter-national Herald Tribune. She is The Word magazine’s Editor at Large.

Isaac ‘Eggy’ Dymond is a keen amateur chef. He learned to read earlier this year.

Cynthia Lewis is mother-in-chief and hosted the barbecue.

What we Ate —> Vegetables on the Barbecue.

01. Chicons with balsamic vengar

and olive oil. 02. Courgette with

mint dressing and ricotta.

03. Aubergines with Brussels honey.

Flesh on the Barbecue.

04. Squid brochettes.

05. Chicken kebabs with poppy

seeds and currants.

Fruit on the Barbecue.

06. Red plums.

07. Pineapple.

08. Rice with black sesame,

pumpkin and pomegranate

seeds. 09. White beans with

thyme dressing. 10. Watermelon

with feta cheese and black olives.

The Sweet Stuff.

11. Vanilla pavlova with blueberries.

12. Espresso marscapone cream

with chocolate biscotti.

What we Drank —> 13. Absolut Vodka.

14. Absolut Pears.

15. Vedett Beer.

16. Evian Still Water.

17. Badoit Sparkling Water.

— The food for the barbecue was meant to match the lace and embroidery hanging on the washing lines. The idea would be that it was all vaguely black, white and grey. Due to our unfortunately amateurish barbecue skills, the food was a lot more black than white on the plates by the end of the meal. Ooops.Writer(and Head Barbecuer) Hettie Judah

Photography Sarah Eechaut

On the Table

Serving dishes, plates, champagne glasses,

serving spoons, cutlery, water jugs and water tum-

blers all from Habitat. Crystal serving bowls

from A La Page. Floral arrangements and petals

by Rosy Rosa. Candle holders by Xavier Lust.

In the Garden

Bistro chairs and table from Habitat. Vintage linen

from A La Page. Plastic garden furniture, Mum’s own.06. 12 + 13.

03.

08.


diners' check The Garden BBQ

The Words on Delphine’s Lips

I remember Malika saying “mox” instead of mix, when talking about Tom Barman’s live DJ set at the Ecolo’s Vert Pop party that same night. Hettie then said the Vodka Pear we had might actually be good with a little Pomegranate juice so we tried it and it turned out to be delicious, so we called it the Mox.

I also remember talking Polaroids with Vin-cent, men (and how they can never accept criticism) with Marie and asking Sarah how The Word was doing in Gent.

The Garden BBQ diners' check

03.

04.

16.

15.

The Words on Malika’s Lips

I remember Hettie’s Middle Eastern-cum-Turkish-cum-Iranian-inspired cooking, in-venting a new word (the MOX), talking about the fi rst love letter I had ever written (full of grammatical errors but so sincere), and the fabulous and passionate accounts of Vin-cent’s photography. I also can’t forget Isaac’s Polaroids, his Polaroids of Polaroids and his Polaroids of my shoes.

The Words on Meli's Lips

We had been planning and organizing the barbecue for the past three weeks or so but, as usual, it all seemed to happen in the week preceding the big night. Stressful. We used Berghoff’s ’32-piece Barbecue Set’ for the grill (pictured below left), ate on Habitat china and sat on their garden furniture. All this on Meli-made, over-pixilated laced pa-per tablecloth and in between vintage linen from A La Page.

The Words on Hettie’s Lips

We want to start thinking of our Word din-ners as nomadic restaurants that pop up every two months in a different place, full of new ideas. We had been inspired by Cali-fornian company Outstanding in the Field who produces organic farm dinners in fi elds served on linen napery and fi ne china. For our fi rst nomadic restaurant, we invited Chef Malika Hamza, member of Brussels’ slow food movement Karikol, to come and talk about how to do a meal together using slow food and an unusual location. She brought a jar of honey produced in Brussels with her, which got us thinking about creating a meal made entirely with produce reared and grown within the Brussels city limits.

The Words on Marie’s Lips

We talked architecture and how everyone always seemed to say the same thing when they realized you were an architect: interior or exterior?

We also talked about Basle where I had just come back from and about contemporary art in general.

We also discussed photography and enjoyed Isaac’s Polaroids. Oh, and we invented a cocktail with Malika and Delphine!


Whilst You Were Sleeping eye-openereye-opener

— With our near-psychopathic urge to doodle on every little inch of paper we fi nd still very much alive, a Getaway-themed issue seemed like the perfect opportunity to indulge in one of our earlier teenage passions: bombing. Here’s what the underworld looks like today…

Photography Paviani ©


Whilst You Were Sleeping eye-openereye-opener Whilst You Were Sleeping


Thanks You’s Smey, Dothewriting and Daer

Whilst You Were Sleeping eye-openereye-opener Whilst You Were Sleeping

www.paviani.be


Color Me Bad the word on the streetthe word on the street

— Delphine often has bright ideas and introducing us to Léopoldine Roux was no exception – literally. A French artist with a studio to die for in the heart of Brussels’ Dansaert area, Léopoldine’s specialty is color-crazy interventions. Be it her street-gumming sessions or – more recently – her fl uorescent - and very public - splashes, we knew she’d be a perfect pick for our Word on the Street pages.Collages Léopoldine Roux


Color Me Bad the word on the streetthe word on the street Color Me Bad


the word on the street Color Me Bad

www.leopoldineroux.com

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THE FOURTH WORD — 91

SongsWe Listen To

our playlists

Alex’s Playlist

01. MadeInJapan — Babyspace

02. José James — Nola

03. Luigi (Infi nitSkills) — Untitled

04. Bad Mothafuckas ft. Incksalonious — Sweet Rendez-Vous

05. Jay Electronica — Hard To Get

06. Mike Dunn — Phreaky MF

07. Tay Zonday — Chocolate Rain (FS Green Remix)

08. Pepe Braddock — Intriguing Feathered Creature

09. Kid Sublime ft. Camp Lo — Rappin’ Blak

Benoit’s Playlist

01. The Kinks — Dedicated follower of fashion

02. Beastie Boys — Namaste

03. Ten Years After — Help Me

04. Janis Joplin — Summertime

05. JJ Cale — Cocaine

06. Duke Ellington & John Coltrane — Take the Coltrane

07. Ice-T — I'm Your Pusher / Pusherman

08. Sugerhill Gang — Rapper's Delight

09. Cypress Hill — I Ain't Going Out Like That

Hettie’s Playlist

01. Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons — The Night

02. Soul Men — Sister Sue

03. Santogold — Shove It

04. Kish Mauve — I'm In Love With A German Film Star

05. The Pointer Sisters — Send Him Back (Pilooski Edit)

06. Jamie Lidell — Out of My System

07. Mono Mono — Kenimania

08. Sons of The Kingdom — Modernization

09. Curtis Mayfi eld — (Don't Worry) If There's A Hell Below

We're All Going to Go

10. Alela Diane — Can You Blame The Sky

Nicholas’ Playlist

01. The White Stripes — Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine

01. Otis Taylor — 32nd Time

01. The Black Keys — Just a Little Heat

01. Joy Division — She's Lost Control

01. Seasick Steve — Things Go Up

01. Plant Life — Agirllikeudeservesamanwhotreatsuhowulike

01. Redman — Soopaman Lova IV

01. Dawn Penn — No, No, No


Stockists…andOthersWe Love

Gallery Excelence

www.cinema-excellence.be

Number 76

www.number76.be

Walibi

www.walibi.be

The Holvoet Brothers

www.holbikes.com

Bob Berben

www.montgolfi ere.be

Mercedes

www.mercedes-benz.be

Porsche

www.porsche.com

BMW

www.bmw.be

Mini Cooper

www.mini.com

Pierre Bergé

www.pba-auctions.com

Christian Louboutin

www.christianlouboutin.fr

Limi Feu

www.limifeu.com

Hermes

www.hermes.com

Agnes b.

www.agnesb.com

Marc Jacobs

www.marcjacobs.com

stockists

Jean Paul Knott

www.jeanpaulknott.com

Yojhi Yamamoto

www.yohjiyamamoto.co.jp

Sonia Rykiel

www.soniarykiel.com

Chanel

www.chanel.com

Samsonite Black Label

www.samsoniteblacklabel.com

Delvaux

www.delvaux.com

Calvin Klein

www.calvinklein.com

Juun. J

www.juunj.com

The North Face

www.thenorthface.com

Leatherman

www.leatherman.com

Tommy Hilfi ger

www.tommy.com

Cappellini

www.cappellini.it

Marcel Wanders

www.marcelwanders.com

The Rug Company

www.therugcompany.com

Stephen Burks

www.readymadeprojects.com

Cook and Book

www.cookandbook.be

Louis Vuitton

www.louisvuitton.com

Berghoff Worldwide

www.berghoff.be

Habitat

www.habitat.net

Evian

www.evian.com

Vedett

www.vedett.com

Absolut Vodka

www.absolut.com

Leopoldine Roux

www.leopoldineroux.com

The Winery

www.wineryonline.be

Artecnica

www.artecnicainc.com www.mobach-groothandel.nl

A.S. Adventures

www.asadventure.com

Entre Terre et Ciel

Place Stéphanie Plein, 201050 Brussels+32 (0)2 502 42 41


advertisers' round up

page 41 page 45

page 99

page 90

page 69

page 100page 97

page 93page 89

Aspria

www.aspriaclub.beFrey Wille

www.frey-wille.com

Peugeot

www.peugeot.be

Schweppes

www.schweppes.be

Cerruti

www.cerruti.comwww.blanpain.net

Chanel

www.chanel.be

Colophon 2009

www.colophon2009.comThe Word

www.thewordmagazine.be

pages 2 - 3

page 9

page 4

page 11 page 15page 7

page 31page 27page 21

Absolut

www.absolut.com

Essentiel

www.essentiel.be

Burberry

www.burberrythebeat.com

Instore

www.instore.beBozar

www.bozar.beAudi

www.audi.be

EHSAL

www.ehsal.beCarpe Diem

www.carpediem.com

advertisers' round up

Brussels Bussines Flats

www.bbf.beVolvo Cars

www.volvocars.be


The New Generation Travel Agent

— Rewind back fi ve years ago, and it seemed every newspaper, magazine, blog and forum were rife with rumours spreading the demise of the intermediaries – be they photography developers, holiday bookers or music shops – due to the noticeable dents technologies such as the internet were making in their bottom line. Although we had initially thought the contrary, one industry sector – that of travel bookings – seems to have emerged unhurt from the web’s sometimes devastating reach. Writer Séverine Vaissaud

Photography Geneviève Balasse

The New Generation Travel Agent the last wordthe last word

Christophe Solé. Owner and manager, with his brother, of a medium size, family-run and established network of travel agencies - Voyages Eoles/Giga Tours – he’s been in the industry for over six years now.

“Strangely enough, at the turn of the mil-lennium, when people started to turn to the internet in masses to book their holidays, our sector saw a 20% increase in year-on-

My mother-in-law regularly gives me her French Elle’s and, the last time she did so, I couldn’t help but notice a 10 pages long feature revealing all the tips to fast and easy holiday online booking. Slightly taken aback by the importance given to the subject, I couldn’t help but wonder what this all meant for the good old fashioned travel agent. And befi tting my knack for exploration, it took me no time to fi nd the right person to speak with:

year sales” says Solé. The reasons for this progression were two-fold: people had been – and still are - spending more on holidays whilst at the same time they hadn’t stopped using the travel agent as an intermediary be-tween them and their sun-fi lled getaways.

A wealth of clients had nevertheless left the vicinities of the classic travel agents al-though, fi nancially speaking, “these were not the most interesting ones” as Solé con-

tinues. “And by the latter we mean holiday-goers who plan “A la Carte” holidays in exotic countries, those who buy packages for far fl ung destinations and of course the business travellers.”

So what exactly are the products be-ing bought over the internet? Well, and in general, it is online sales are approximately split as follows: 50% go directly to airlines and 25% go to neighbouring countries’ ho-tels (thanks to the booming trend that is city trips). As you can imagine, all this didn’t then – and still doesn’t - quite dent the in-dustry’s business model, as these weren’t exactly the services that made for travel agency’s sound fi nancial health.

As for the remaining 25%, it is taken up by that crop of travellers for who money saved means everything – regardless of the time spent looking for that perfect trip. This is where the travel agency really could have lost revenue. But up to now, as Christophe Solé states, 70% of travel bookings in Bel-gium are still made through agencies.

And they have reasons to. Travel agen-cies still provide better and fuller services than their online counterparts. And they have adapted theses accordingly to suit their clients’ every desire, whatever they might be. They have also gradually specialized in specifi c journeys and tailor-made activities which go a step further than your usual holi-day package.

Among his proudest trips he has helped organise, Solé vividly remembers that of Belgian Baron Albert Frère’s trip on a Con-corde, Deutsche Bank’s lottery journeys or the special trip put together for a group of people who wanted to sail up the river Séné-gal in an old 1950’s boat. It is here that an agency’s added value really steps up.

What is more, secure payments and in-surances, the full spectre of travel offers and perfect personal consultancy are the three must-haves that are unfortunately rarely found online but always guaranteed at your local agents’. And unlike conventional wis-dom usually states, these services are not more expensive than on the Internet. It even proves cheaper most of the time.

In the middle and long term, the Internet has oddly enough even proved to send cus-tomers straight back to established agencies. People are now using the web to gather in-formation on the getaways they want to plan, then seek face-to-face advice with the agen-cies and end up buying their holidays at the same time.

But this is not to say that the boutique travel agency is not at risk, especially from bigger players, such as big tour operators, which could seriously compromise the fu-ture fi nancial stability of travel agents. In-deed, the Belgian market is shared at 90% by two big actors: Thomas Cook and Jet Air upon whom travel agencies depend to ensure most of their revenues. These tour operators have started to open their own travel shops and now extend their offer to the Internet. They will soon sell the very same products than that of classical travel agencies but at a slightly discounted price as agencies need to add on their commissions. This would pre-cipitate the end of the “golden years” and the agencies could fi nd themselves in a one hell of a pickle. This is why in the long term, they will have a lot to gain from revisiting their travel offerings in order to provide a more personalised and customised service to their loyal clients.

Although we’re not planning on taking any holidays quite yet, we can only hope to be one of them very soon…

www.voyageseole.be

" A wealth of clients

have left the vicinities

of the classic

travel agent "


what's next

From

5-st

ar waste management practices to

the country’s near-obsessive snack culture, we’re set for some tasty – if not slightly greasy - offerings as off early September.

What is more, our travelling restaurant takes us to the streets of most major cities in the world, getting served th

e best in

stre

et fo

od.

And for our fashion series, we revisit our old schools’ refectories, pulpy food fight style.

All this,

as always, in addition to our many crunchy one-pagers, spiced-up selections and sweet se

nsatio

ns.

Not to fo

rget

our

hig

h-fly

ing p

ancake contest…

Mouth-watering, crispy and scrumptious, The Word’s Delectable Foodie Issue will be akin to a culinary carte blanche on printed matter.

The Word’s Delectable Foodie Issue.Out 5th September 2008.Whip it up, light it up, eat it up.

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