The nuanced pages of Tom Van der Borght’s anthology and his shared vocation in fabrics, fashion, art and artistry

what is normalcy for the belgian designer – in his book, he delves into the bombardment of textures volumes and colors, the union of playfulness and self-depreciation, and being the creator of technicolor

The town and municipality of Bilzen is located in the province of Limburg, in Belgium, fifteen kilometers due West of its neighbor Maastricht, in the Netherlands. In the 2020 census carried out by Statbel – the statistics office in Belgium that collects, produces and disseminates figures on the economy, society and territory of the country – it was found that the town houses over thirty-two thousand residents and is the home of Tom Van der Borght. It was in the living room of his house that Van der Borght had previously picked up the remote control and turned on the family television, dismissing the clock that signaled his time to go to school. On the screen, he had watched Björk flail her hands, jump in jubilation, move her body up close and further away from the camera, and dance on top of a delivery truck in a cinematography doused in grayscale. Stéphane Sednaoui had directed and filmed Björk for a day in New York City on October 26, 1993. They had played the song as the truck drove by the city, as the New Yorkers responded by dancing with Björk. After the shoot, Sednaoui described the songstress as an individual sheltered in layers, her character defying the onlookers’ opinions over her performance on the truck. Her Big Time Sensuality music video entranced Van der Borght and challenged him to keep his eyes off the screen. As he kept his gaze on Björk and absorbed each minute of the track and video, Van der Borght resonated with her artistry. «Björk possesses the ability to reinvent herself, to find a version of her persona in contrast to that of her former self. She does not place herself in a single box, a category, but slithers out and perseveres with a performance that reverberated my approach to fashion and art. I reinvent what I know and re-fashion who I am into what I produce».

Van der Borght is transported back to his family’s living room, with fabrics scattered across the floor as his mother, skilled in sewing and pattern cutting, demonstrated pattern drawing to her son. At five, Van der Borght crossed his legs and sat next to her on the floor, scrutinizing the two layers of fabrics that composed the pants. In a guide published by New Mexico State University, styles to avoid and those to adopt commence with the creation of pants. Flared, fitted, straight, and silhouettes that flatter one’s figure. While the technicalities fell on Van der Borght’s deaf ears, the fabric selection piqued his interest: gabardine, velveteen, denim and corduroy. As he busied himself with the variety of textiles, and refashioned the styles and outfits of his sister’s dolls in his spare time, his pursuit of creativity picked up its pace. He began the stages of learning creativity through visuals. Sara Gable – an Associate Professor, State Extension Specialist at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and author of Creativity in Young Children – identifies Van der Borght’s transition at the cusp of the Scribbling Stage and Pre-schematic Stage, as he was able to realize the effect he had in his interaction with the fabrics, showcase his fascination towards color, establish familiarity and appetite for the materials, and the search for ways to actualize the ideas he had concocted in his mind. «Creativity is more than a product. It is a process. A painting, a thought-provoking writing or a response may be examples of creative work, but the decisions people make as they paint, sculpt, write and think are at the core of the process. There is a gap and a balance». In his youth, his grades at school could have afforded him to study degrees in maths or business at the University, but Van der Borght steered away from these selections, shocking his parents who had reasoned out to him that he would surpass the benchmarks of the art, fashion, and theater fields combined. He spent a year studying social and political science at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and attended a course on social work in Ghent, where he had moved once he turned nineteen. Van der Borght’s vocation in fashion and art simmered as he dabbled in social work. For two years, he worked for a literacy center as a teacher to adults, guiding them on how to read, write and establish confidence in order to integrate themselves into the community. For a further three years, he transitioned into working at a non-profit educational organization for teenagers who came from difficult and abusive family backgrounds, helping them to navigate towards rehabilitation and reincorporation into the society. Adding another two years to his profession, he moved on to his next non-profit organization, working on policies that touched on domestic violence and abuse. His time as a social worker eluminated his penchant for diversity – in culture and in ethics – as he brought in the nuances of fashion and art to the adults and teenagers he had worked with, yet he realized that manifesting justice in society would take more than an overture of fashion and art to the public.

At twenty-six, Van der Borght found out that