To celebrate their 25th anniversary, Katrin Wouters and Karen Hendrix stuffed three suitcases with memories, souvenirs and old jewellery. They function as dollhouses, miniature versions of the Wouters & Hendrix universe, that will travel around the world. In February, you can see one of the treasure chests at the Bozar shop, where you can also buy special Valentine jewellery and a little book about Wouters&Hendrix’s quarter-century of jewellery design.
After 25 years, do you still enjoy yourselves?
Karen: Oh, we make sure we do; otherwise we’d stop. We’re always looking for new challenges. We’re so impulsive; we don’t really plan our future. There is just always something that crosses our paths.
When you started your own jewellery label, did you ever think you’d make it this far?
Karen: We didn’t, and I don’t think you can. There are two ways of starting a business. Either you study the economics and devise a strategy, a plan and goals. Or you start idealistically, like we did. We just started making the jewellery we wanted to make.
How has the jewellery industry in Belgium changed over the past quarter- century?
Karen: When we started, there was no one like us. It was pretty rough in the beginning because very few people believed in us. They thought our designs were strange. But then there was the rising fame of Belgian fashion design, and we fit in there perfectly. That helped us a lot.
Do you think you’ve cleared the path for the dozens of creative jewellery designers Flanders has spawned over the past decade?
Karen: I’m pretty sure of that. Both Katrin and I studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, where everything was about creativity. We used the experience to do something commercial, which was not done back then. But I think the challenge of making something commercial that is still exactly what you want to make, is as much an art as the creation of unique pieces.
And yet here you are showcasing 25 years of jewellery design at Bozar, a museum. Is your jewellery not considered art?
Karen: A while ago, a magazine published an article about us under the title “Making jewellery is not art, it’s a craft” and I think that is nicely put. You want your creations to be good, and you put your heart and soul into it, but I think an artist works in a different way. In the end, it’s a commercial product, so should we call it art?
Why is the exhibition so spread out instead of being all here in Belgium?
Karen: We have a lot of international clients, so we didn’t like the idea of doing one big exhibition in one place. Also, jewellery is so much more intimate than a big expo. That’s why we chose for the dollhouse-like suitcases that travel the world.
Katrin: We wanted to share our world with as many people as possible. That’s why we added pictures, invitations, stuff we collected from flea markets… That’s a weakness of ours: every market we go to, we come back with a giant bag filled to the brim. Luckily we have a large attic to store everything!
I heard a rock band helped out with your new book.
Katrin: We worked with Aarich Jespers, the drummer of Zita Swoon, and his brother Jelle. Creative people from other disciplines bring a completely new way of looking at things.
Karen: The book tells our story through pictures, with very little text: our first fair, our first designs. I flip through the book and stop at a page with a picture of a Japanese girl, her fingernails brightly painted with the initials W&H.
Katrin: That girl brought all of her Wouters & Hendrix jewellery to us in a leather bundle, and she wanted us to put our signatures on it. We don’t have that in Europe – the crying and the wanting to touch you, the utter and absolute fandom!
I hear you are designing now for Belgian diamond label Baunat.
Karen: Two years ago, we started our own gold collection. We wanted to start working with gold because it needs a different approach: it’s more timeless, less fashion-trendy. It’s also much closer to diamonds. It’s a wonderful challenge, designing with diamonds, but it’s something that needs a huge investment if a designer were to do that on their own.
With this much success, do you have any dreams left?
Katrin: We want to further develop this gold collection and work with diamonds more often. Next to that, we hope we’ll be able to continue doing all this with as much gusto as ever.
25 years
Wouters & Hendrix
Until 28 February
Bozar Shop, 15 Ravensteinstraat
Brussels
www.bozar.be
The Wouters & Hendrix jewellery selected to be sold exclusively at Bozar is sentimental and romantic: a brooch with a Bambi, a pair of earrings and a necklace with a red rose. “In a way, these are examples of what Wouters & Hendrix stand for,” explains Karen Hendrix. “By bringing the iconography of the Bambi and the heart together, you create a kind of rebus,” adds Wouters. “We love that everyone has their own associations and memories attached to these symbols.”
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