68 AMERICANWAY
NOVEMBER 15 2008
WHEN JENNIFER LOPEZ
pulled together her outfit for her December
2007 album release, she chose a beautifully
hand-stitchedwhite vest by one of Antwerp’s
rising-star designers, Tim Van Steenbergen.
But at his atelier, just outside the center of
Flanders’s biggest city, the unassuming fash-
ion-worlddarlingwas totally oblivious toLo-
pez’s selection. Then, a fewweeks later, while
flipping through theBelgian equivalent of
US
Weekly
,VanSteenbergen saw it. “I stoppedon
apictureofherandthought, ‘Well,that’sfunny.
That looks a lot like apiece ofmine,’” he says.
While many designers desperately try to curry favor with
celebrity stylists and their clients,VanSteenbergen, age30,
and theother fashion starsofAntwerpquietlygoabout the
business of making one-of-a-kind artisanal fashion. He’s
not living in adreamworld—VanSteenbergenknows that
when paparazzi-stalked fans of his clothing, like Lopez,
CameronDiaz, andHillaryDuff, wear his pieces, it’s great
news for thevisibilityofhisbrand.Buthe’s justnot the type
to chase the celebs downandbeg; that’snot theway things
work in this flashbulbless new style capital of Europe. And
that is exactly the reason why only the true fashionistas
have ever evenheardofAntwerp.
TWO HOURS NORTH of Paris by high-speed train,
and just 45 minutes north of the Belgian capital, Brus-
sels, the gritty yet charmingmedieval port city of Antwerp
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