In 2002 the Antwerp Fashion Museum - MoMu opened its doors for public and presented its first exhibition in the historical ModeNatie building on the Nationalestraat. Since then, MoMu has presented two temporary exhibitions every year, and some smaller exhibitions and installations in the gallery on the ground floor. After an extensive renovation and expansion MoMu reopend in 2021 with extra public exhibition space (a permanent collection presetation), a small shop and a museum café.
MoMu exhibitions are characterized by their immersive scenography. As a visitor, you not only see the exhibits, you also are immersed in the world of the designer or the theme. The exhibition space is completely transformed for every exhibition, making each visit a unique experience.
Through these exhibitions and a public programm of guided tours, workshops, lectures e.o. MoMu wants to cultivate curiosity about fashion and make it accessible to all. The museum uses fashion as a prism to look at the world from different angles. As a contemporary fashion museum it aims to make fashion subject to reflection and criticism, to explore what fashion is, and what it does to us. Within its exhibitions and public programm MoMu reflects on the relationship between fashion and society.
From that perspective MoMu launched in September 2022 the Fashion and Sustainability Walk in collaboration with Jasmien Wynants, sustainable fashion expert. Although sustainability sometimes feels like a trend, the concept has been around for centuries. Made up of many different facets sustainability encompasses far more than we associate with it in our own time. The walk reveals how the concepts inherent to sustainable practices have long been applied and are deeply woven into Antwerp’s fashion DNA - not as hype, but as a fundamental principle.