Seven Spots in Otto Vandersloot's Antwerp Car Park, Ranked by Oil Stain
Four winters in, the designer still shows among the parked cars. Adaeze Nwosu-Prior, who wrote in 2022 that it would be over by spring, ranks the places to stand.
I am on Level 3 in a wool coat and my left shoe is in something. It is 9:40 on a Thursday night, the show is forty minutes late, and a man in a hi-vis vest is handing out paper cups of hot water. This is fashion in Antwerp in October. It is also the fourth year of Otto Vandersloot's car park show, and I would like to get my confession in early.
In October 2022 I wrote, in print, that the car park show would be over by spring. My reasoning was that nobody could sit on concrete for twenty minutes more than twice. Spring came. Otto booked Level 5. I have since stopped predicting anything about concrete.
Here are the best places to stand, ranked by level, ramp and oil stain.
7. Level 0, by the barrier. You see every guest arrive and none of the clothes. Ramp: none, only a yellow arm that goes up and down. Stain: a small brown one, polite. Skip.
6. Level 1, the pillar. A pillar is a pillar. You will watch eleven coats go by through a gap the width of a hand. Ramp: distant. Stain: shaped like a boot. I asked a woman beside me whether it was part of the set. She said it was hers.
5. Level 2, the corner by the pay machine. Warm, because the machine hums. Models come round the bend too fast and look slightly worried, which suits a waxed felt coat with the sleeves sewn shut. I have now seen sewn sleeves in four collections. The idea was finished after two. Stain: grey and faint.
4. Level 4, the middle of the ramp. Dangerous and correct. Models walk straight at you and you must decide whether to move. Most people move. Otto's trousers, with a second waistband at the knee, look better in motion than they should. Stain: a black circle where a van once leaked for what must have been a year.
3. Level 3, the concrete bench. This is the only seat, and it belongs to a stylist who has not given it up since 2023. Stand near her anyway. She sighs at the right moments. Ramp: you get the end of it, where the models slow down and the hems finally show. Stain: a rainbow one, which is the only colour in the building that Otto did not choose.
2. Level 5, the open edge. No roof, no wall, the whole dark harbour behind the last look. The coats flap, and for once the sewn sleeves do something. Ramp: steep, and everyone walks it like they mean to sue it. Stain: none. It is the cleanest level, so it is the least interesting. I have noticed I am fond of it.
1. Level 3, the exact middle of the stain. Not a joke. The model who walks over it turns slightly, the flash hits the oil, and the coat looks wet and expensive. A big black oval with a green edge, like a pond on a bad road. Otto did not plan it and has never said so. That is how I know it is the best spot.
As for my prediction, I would rank it where it belongs. Level 0, by the barrier. Small stain, nothing to see.
