Elisa De Wyngaert – författare

Masquerade, Make-up & Ensor transposes Ensor's ideas around the masquerade, (false) coquetry, seduction, deception, the artificial and the ephemeral to today. MoMu (Fashion Museum Antwerp) celebrates the painters of fashion: the craftsmanship and inexhaustible creativity of make-up and hair artists in a book where light, colour, art, fashion and make-up meet. Make-up and beauty have today become a trillion-dollar industry that confronts man with his physical mortality, imagined imperfections and existential fears. But make-up, like paint, is also a form of personal expression, artistic experimentation, joy and freedom. Masquerade, Make-up & Ensor explores how closely make-up is intertwined with many aspects of our humanity.

The essays and interviews in this book – published in conjunction with the exhibition Echo - explore the personal, universal and tactile memories of baby, child and motherhood, aging and nostalgia, handmaking and repair, and both the physical and emotional memories of clothing. The book features precious childhood drawings by designers Martin Margiela, Christian Lacroix, Mikio Sakabe, Bernhard Willhelm, Simone Rocha, Jean Paul Gaultier, amongst others. Alongside contemporary art and fashion, Echo sheds a unique light on the idea of the private, domestic, and quotidian by including ‘imperfect’ garments from the MoMu Collection: garments that reveal the presence of their previous wearers, that tell stories of a life lived, of scars, sweat, tears, and joy.