Julie Kegels Designs for Every Woman, Everywhere, All at Once

Julie Kegels starts her designs by thinking about archetypes. “I always have a group of women in mind, and they appear in different guises, in different stories,” says the 26-year-old from her studio, in Antwerp. “I think, Okay, this is for a woman who works at the library, is passionate about tennis, and loves to eat mango—I really get into the details.” Her girls are rich in paradoxes: There’s a chronically busy businesswoman who loves to party, and a whip-smart city lawyer with a penchant for extreme nature adventures. These contradictions and juxtapositions are at the core of Kegels’s visual language, which has attracted fans after just three collections. “I’m always looking for a balance of beauty and the off-kilter,” she explains. (Just a couple examples from her second collection, titled “A Pool Will Do”: a tweed knit top paired with an aloha-print miniskirt; a one-sleeve floral dress that looked soaking wet.)

Belgian designers and artists are no strangers to symbolism, recontextualization, and visual puns—just think of Martin Margiela or René Magritte. But it takes deep knowledge and confidence to play the semiotics game well. Kegels, who grew up in Antwerp, first became enthralled by fashion as a young girl poring over books about the grand legends of couture, such as Paul Poiret, Coco Chanel, and Madame Grès. After school, she would sit at the side of a local seamstress to learn dressmaking techniques. While her parents weren’t artists—Mom ran a catering business; Dad was the founder and designer of a utility-centric luggage brand—they “always pushed me and my sister toward culture,” says Kegels. “We would see every exhibition at the city’s museums and galleries. At times, I just wanted to play with Barbies, but now I’m so grateful to have had this education.” She went on to study at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where the Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck was head of the fashion department. Her 2021 graduate collection was inspired by Judy Chicago’s late-1970s installation The Dinner Party, which featured 39 stylistically distinct place settings representing both mythical and historical women. Kegels’s “Supper Club” referenced 12 of Chicago’s characters, including Emily Dickinson and Ethel Smith, and featured an eccentric array of backless chorister-style gowns and a plastic-covered lace bridal dress, all designed to serve as both garments and table decorations. “That’s when the idea of archetypes took hold,” she explains.

Kegels’s parents cautioned her that fashion was a tough business. But after internships with Meryll Rogge—the talented fellow Belgian who was recently named the creative director of Marni—and at Alaïa, Kegels decided to take a risk and go out on her own. “I reasoned that not doing something might give way to the same level of anxiety and fear as actually doing it,” she says. “I was like, Okay, let’s just work super, super hard and with a lot of passion.” She launched her eponymous brand in 2024 with a collection titled “50/50,” which was staged as a tableau vivant in a Paris shop window. It featured Jekyll and Hyde styles: a black tailored suit with a conventional front but shorts at the backside; a hybrid knit-and-denim skirt. “In my mind, this 50/50 woman is deeply ambitious but also wild,” says Kegels. The presentation immediately caught the attention of the press, buyers, and a sales agent.

For her most recent show, “Dresscode,” she played with the idea of business ensembles. Her starting point was Judith Price’s 1980 book, Executive Style: Achieving Success Through Good Taste and Design, which Kegels truffled out at an L.A. flea market. The entirely non-ironic tome is about how the decoration and style of one’s office space might guarantee professional ascent. “You can be successful because you have a nice office? It intrigued me how something could be so easy, almost simple,” says Kegels. “The book was full of beautiful images of ’80s-era offices, and the author was very specific on the schemes, down to the type of furniture, curtains, carpets. I thought, How can I translate this manual into a concept for garments?”

Kegels’s own picture of achievement was a woman in tailored denim jeans, a slender shirt, a gray wool boyfriend sweater, and high-heeled pumps, all executed with a wry twist. The show, held in a small theater in Paris’s 17th arrondissement, opened with a model picking out clothes that were laid out on a luxurious modernist chrome and tan leather club chair made by Harmo, a Paris-based design studio started by Kegels’s friends. There were knits with velvet “upholstery” shoulder pads, ladylike ensembles created from satin-trimmed bed blankets, prints of plush button upholstery on slip skirts, and tops that said sit on me. Even accessories brought to mind home furnishings—most notably her giant, puffy cushion clutches. Kegels usually begins collections by pulling and cutting apart vintage clothes—both her own and her boyfriend’s—to examine their innards. For this one, she also dove into methods of sofa construction on YouTube.

This approach to fashion—creation through focused exploration—allows Kegels to tackle almost any subject while maintaining a coherent, distinctive style. It also guarantees that we will have plenty of surprises from her in the future. “What I really love, and this is when things get interesting for me,” she says, “is when something is a bit weird.”

Hair by Oummy Youssoufa; Makeup by Nicky De Winter for SHISEIDO; Models: Imane Benkaddour at Elite Model Paris, Evie Nopère at Noah Mgmt, Laura Savy at Elite Model Paris. Casting by ashley brokaw casting. Photo Assistant: Tim Coppens; Retouching: Grading Bureau; Hair Assistant: Axelle Husikama; Makeup Assistant: Tine Josephy.