Europe has always been a question of borders. Fashion, meanwhile, has always found ways to ignore them.
This June, Brussels becomes the meeting point for both. Marking 30 years of Austria’s membership in the European Union, HERE, THERE, WITHIN arrives at Reset Brussels with a proposition that feels especially relevant right now: what does cultural identity look like when it is constantly in motion?
Presented by the Austrian Fashion Association, the project brings together 13 designers whose practices move across disciplines, geographies and aesthetics. Rather than presenting fashion as a finished product, the exhibition frames it as an evolving conversation—one shaped by migration, technology, craft, memory and the shifting realities of contemporary Europe.
The lineup includes Alessandro Santi, Benedikt Simon Salchegger, Dead White Men’s Clothes, Flora Miranda, Florentina Leitner, GATTO, Hao Wu, HISU PARK, Julian Schock, Lore, Matthias Winkler, Sassa Ann Van Wyk and Used To Be. Together, they offer a portrait of Austrian fashion that feels anything but fixed: experimental, international and resistant to easy categorisation.
Inside Reset, immersive mannequin installations transform garments into cultural artefacts. Outside, a city-wide poster campaign extends the project into the streets, allowing fashion to escape the exhibition format and enter everyday urban life. The result is less a showcase than a temporary occupation of Brussels itself.
At a moment when Europe is once again debating questions of belonging, identity and connection, HERE, THERE, WITHIN proposes fashion as a space where those conversations can be held differently. Not through policy or politics, but through images, bodies and ideas.
Fashion may be the medium. The real subject is Europe—and what it means to imagine it anew.