Why Antwerp needs a local guide
Antwerp is Belgium's fashion capital. The Royal Academy of Fine Arts produced the Antwerp Six — Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, and four others who changed fashion in the 1980s. The diamond district around Centraal Station is the world's largest. But the real Antwerp is in Het Zuid with its galleries and brunch spots, and in the Kloosterstraat antique shops. The Scheldt riverfront is being redeveloped and nobody agrees on whether it's better or worse.
Antwerp draws around 3 million visitors a year, and the city has a habit of surprising people who come expecting a smaller Brussels. It is not. Antwerp has its own identity — louder, more fashion-forward, and with a diamond district that processes 80% of the world's rough diamonds within a few blocks of Centraal Station. But most visitors stay in that orbit and miss Het Zuid, the neighborhood where the Royal Museum of Fine Arts anchors a gallery district that extends into side streets full of concept stores and brunch spots. To become a tour guide in Antwerp means understanding how a medieval port city became a global fashion reference. The Antwerp Six story is real — six students from the Royal Academy crashed London Fashion Week in 1988 and changed the industry. Dries Van Noten still has his flagship on Nationalestraat. To become a tour guide in Antwerp is to walk people from the diamond quarter through the Kloosterstraat antique shops, past the Scheldt riverfront, and into Zurenborg where the Art Nouveau houses rival anything in Brussels. Become a tour guide in Antwerp and you show visitors a city where a bolleke of De Koninck at Café Den Engel and a Bicky Burger from the frituur on Hoogstraat are as important as any museum.