The Product of Dreams
Is he an old school cabinetmaker? A designer of ceramics pur sang? An artist or - why not - a magician playing his magic with both hands? For more than twenty years, Antwerp-based Antoine Vandewoude has been most of the above. Dreaming of a design study at the Antwerp Academy, fate soon woke him up to real life: working as a technician for the Vlaamse Opera. In between production work, Antoine started reparing old furniture and making his own furniture. Always objects he loved: small stools, a dinner table, a cabinet… in his workshop old furniture got a second life, whereas new ideas were turned into real objects that found their way to clients all over the world (not to mention fashion designer Dries Van Noten, who often found exactly what he needed in Antoine’s workshop). Antoine has tried out all kinds of wood, in a true Shaker-style. And then, all of a sudden, he ventured into ceramics. Here was a completely different way of working. But Antoine loves it. Instead of standing up and handling the hammer and the chisel, he’s now sitting down on a low chair, taking and moulding the clay, cherishing it, turning it, and working that magic again. Antoine designs pots and vases, and vases and pots, and more of that. The result is warm, colourful and authentic, rather than perfect, although that’s exactly what Antoine is striving for. But perfection tends to come out in a far more interesting way. Sometimes brutal, sometimes clean and pure. Antoine’s starting point is always the imagination he’s had even when he was a small child. What he designs never really is premeditated. It’s a lot of work, yet always the product of amazing dreams.
Words by Veerle Windels
Clients
Willy Vanderperre - Fashion photographer
Olivier Rizzo - Stylist
Dries Van Noten - Fashion designer
Rinus Van de Velde - Artist
Marie-José Van Hee - Architect
Gert Voorjans - Interior designer
Josse De Pauw - Theatremaker, author and columnist
Ann Demeulemeester - Fashion designer
Sara De Roo - Actor
Guy Peeters - Theatre
Bart Haverkamp & Pieter Croes - Landscape architects
Danny Hiele - Cinematographer
Christoph De Boeck - Artist
Kathleen Missotten - Fashion designer
Jo Roets - Director
Manoe Frateur - Actor
Geert Bruloot - Coccodrillo
Eddy Michiels - Fashion
Patrícia Portela - Theatre
Frederik Swennen - Main professor, Faculty of Law
Transparant Antwerp - Music Theatre
Laika - Theatre company
Geerdt Magiels - PhD at Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Dennis Tyfus- Artist
Bart Van den Eynde - Playwriter
Agnes Goyvaerts - Journalist
Veerle Windels - Journalist
Marc Swyngedouw - Professor, Faculty of Sciences
Patrick Robyn - Photographer
Jolente De Keersmaeker - Actor and director
Dirk Van Saene - Fashion designer
Walter Van Beirendonck - Fashion designer
MOMU Antwerpen
Serax NV
Graanmarkt 13 Antwerpen
Pieter Mulier - Fashion designer
MAISON-ALAIA
Arte ristorante
Costersveld
Kasteel d'Ursel