NEW YORK, NY.- Dirk Bikkembergs, one of the much-written-about Antwerp Six (a group of influential cutting-edge Belgian fashion designers), audaciously chose to focus his designs on the intersection between fashion and sport, particularly pieces designed for or inspired by soccer. Seeing sports as a universal language, Bikkembergs designed haute couture for athletes who are themselves already aesthetic icons of masculinity. The first designer to hold a fashion show in a sports stadium, Bikkembergs uses his local soccer team as a laboratory for styling with the latest fabric technology, creating designs that are sexy yet comfortably flexible, from exclusive jackets to high-performance underwear and sporty street shoes. After more than 50 collections and hundreds of individual pieces archived, the time has come to review the ingenuity of this contemporary designer. To mark the 25th anniversary Bikkembergs foray into the world of fashion, Rizzoli published Dirk Bikkembergs: 25 Years of Athletes and Fashion.

The book does more than merely reproduce images from his archives; it showcases Bikkemberg’s favorite designs and presents them with a fresh approach. Since style itself never goes out of fashion, the 400 page tome testifies to the fact that his vision of man and his wardrobe has never actually changed, only evolved. Dirk Bikkembergs: 25 Years of Athletes and Fashion follows his trajectory from his debut collection in 1985, through his uninterrupted creativity and spectacular shows of the 1990s which made him a fashion superstar, and into the new millennium when he entered a new chapter by bridging the worlds of fashion and sports at a time when athletes began to equal the popularity of movie stars and pop singers. This handsome book is the first to capture the celebrated designer’s one-of-a kind creations through stunning photography taken in various locations around the world.

Dirk Bikkembergs is a world-renowned fashion designer and one of the acclaimed Antwerp Six, a group of contemporary Belgian designers.

“I already knew instinctively that for me it was all about what was underneath the person’s clothes, the body and soul, and that THIS would define my fashion. In times gone by, clothes served as protection, or to show one’s rank in society. In today’s world clothes are more about sending out a message…” -- Dirk Bikkembergs