Anita Evenepoel

It happened in the late 1970s, I had only been working in contemporary applied art for four years. I can still see it, because in those days we asked the designers to bring the works themselves and set them up for evaluation. One of her works consisted of plexi tubes, hooked together with linen. I myself had no voice in the jury, being too young, but I thought it was fantastic and very progressive work. Moreover, textile art was a hot item at the time, because the discipline wanted to break into contemporary visual art. [...]

Besides jewelry and theater costumes, fashion was her great love. In the beginning she sewed very traditionally, but developed an enormous interest in the industrial side of things. 'I continue to love the artisanal, but in our contemporary times this is difficult to maintain in terms of business and content,' she confided to me. And of course for her fashion creations she was always looking for very special fabrics, preferably innovative industrial in origin. At the end of the nineties she cut the knot and concentrated on designing an industrial, commercial fashion line with the name 'Pret a Partir'. Initially, these were coats intended as elegant urban garments for the active woman, but more and more silhouettes were created. The series mentioned interest in the industrial aspect of textiles came into its own. Through the use of ultrasound, laser, computer cutting machines, they tried, in cooperation with Greet Lenaerts, business manager, a realistic but very progressive fashion line. In the course of last year Anita, after about 12 years, put an end to this cooperation for business reasons.