"The Coats Were Fine. The Cars Had Better Posture," Says Mirela Sund
At Otto Vandersloot's car park show in Antwerp, the exhaust was staged, the coats were mostly good, and every model walked at exactly the same speed.
The chair is the first problem. It is folding, green canvas, set out by someone who has never met a spine, on level 3 of Garage Dekker between a silver estate car and a pillar marked 3C. It is 9:40 on a grey Saturday morning. The show was called for nine.
Then the exhaust. Three diesel vans idle at the top of the ramp, and Otto Vandersloot calls this atmosphere. I call it a cough with a budget. By the second look my eyes were running and my notebook smelled like a bus depot.
Look 1 is a long waxed cotton coat the colour of a traffic cone, cut like a car cover with sleeves. It is the best thing in the show, and it comes out first. That is the error of a man who thinks the audience will wait for him.
Because the pace never changes. Thirty-one looks, one tempo. A model appears from behind a hatchback, walks to the pillar, passes the front row and vanishes behind a van. A coat needs a pause. A collar needs a turn. Here nobody stops, so nothing lands, and the cars start to look like the ones doing the judging.
Look 9 is double-faced wool in mustard and cobalt, with a lapel cut a full centimetre too wide. It looks like a mistake made on purpose, which is the only kind of mistake worth a ticket. I forgive it.
Look 14 I do not forgive. It is a quilted coat stuffed, says the programme, with shredded parking tickets, priced at €2,300. It crackles on every step. Under a concrete ceiling it sounds like applause from a man who has not been paid.
Vandersloot has shown in car parks since 2022, and this season he came down to level 3 after climbing to level 5 last time. The concrete used to be an idea. It is now a lease. A location is not a point of view, and no amount of oil-stained floor can do the work of a second thought about a hem.
Still, the closing coat, a floor-length slab of black felt with one sleeve left deliberately unfinished, made a woman beside me stop chewing her gum. In this business that is a standing ovation.
The show ended at 10:21. At the barrier an attendant asked for my parking ticket. I had left it under the chair. The exit cost €4.20, the only item all morning that was priced correctly.
