Welcome to the brandnew MintRed website!

From now on, you can find the monthly MintRed Newsletters here on our own website, so if you check in regularly, you’ll be in the know about what Belgian talent in fashion, art, photography, design, gastronomy, retail, music -and many other disciplines- is up to these days.
When you subscribe to the free newsletters, we’ll send you an e-mail whenever a new one is ready, so you’ll be among the first people to know. Just drop us a line at: mintred@pandora.be and ask to be put on the MintRed subscribers mailing list.

If this is your first visit and you’re curious about the earlier newsletters, click on the links you’ll find elsewhere on this page. Whenever you have news to tell us to do with Belgian creativity, please drop us a line and we’ll do our best to include it in one of our upcoming issues. Other suggestions and comments are welcome too, of course!

Because the MintRed website is so new (it became operational on November 1st, 2004) the only things you can see so far are the MintRed newsletters. Expect other items, such as longer stories and more photos of our favorite subjects and news about Mintred clients very soon indeed though. Thank you for visiting –and we hope to see you again soon!


Ninette (creative director MintRed PR)
Analik opens shop with café and bed & breakfast in Antwerp

Last month Dutch designer Analik opened her first shop ‘Miauw’ in Antwerp, combining it with a luxurious bread & breakfast concept, consisting of three self-contained apartments and a café, where you can relax with a cup of coffee & apple pie or a Belgian beer but also can get lunch or dinner, either to take away or to eat right there. The store on the ground floor will offer the Analik knitwear collection as well as products by several other designers, plus books, magazines, accessories and furniture.

Miauw-Antwerp is located in the most interesting part of Antwerp -’t Zuid- close to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts and with a large variety of galleries, restaurants, cocktailbars and fashion shops close by to pick from. Perfect for the traveller who is interested in art, fashion and the good life!

Miauw-Analik,
Marnixplaats 14,
2000 Antwerp.

suites@analik.com
or
analik@analik.com
Bikkembers Gazetta
La Gazzetta dello Sport is an Italian newspaper completely dedicated to sport and printed on pink paper. La Gazzetta is an institution in Italy, you can’t imagine a newspaper kiosk without the pink daily. Another proof of their success is that the newspaper is frequently sold abroad. Passionate about football, Dirk Bikkembergs has decided to put the mythical Gazzetta in his last winter collection and personalized a T-shirt with his version of what the front page could look like. The Belgian fashion designer praises the players of Inter Milan - of which he is the official supplier since summer 2004....
Launch party ‘Designers against AIDS’
On the occasion of 15 years Café d’Anvers, lots of fashion designers and DJ’s (15 people in all) were asked to make a design that could be printed on black T-shirts, kindly donated by Hanes. The results are astonishing and beautiful, all of them limited edition must-have pieces. You can choose between Elvis Pompilio, Dirk Bikkembergs, Duck (graffiti artist), Tom Barman (dEUS), Buscemi (DJ), Jean-Paul Knott, Calvin Klein/Francesco Costa, Smos & Baby Bee (DJ's), Bernard Gavilan, Dimitri from Paris (DJ/musician), Cd’A design team Milk and Cookies, Sven Van Hees (DJ/musician) and Christoph Broich- or why not buy more than one? Proceeds of the sale will go to the aids research department of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, so you know it’ll be money well spent.

The T-shirts will be for sale in Café d’Anvers during club nights, on the websites www.cafedanvers.com and www.Since1989.com and at Clinic shop, De Burburestraat in Antwerp and will cost 40 euros each. To launch the T-shirt campaign, Café d’Anvers hosts a special club night on Friday November 12th, where most of the designers will be present- and will play a set for you. Entrance to this special night is 5 euros (this money also goes to the Institute of Tropical Medicine)- and free if you’re wearing one of the anti-aids T-shirts! We hope to see the T-shirts all over Belgium –and internationally too- very soon.


Designed by Tom Barman
Sweet like chocolate
Every year, chocolate professionals and lovers alike assemble at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris to check what’s new in the world of cocoa, sugar and butter- and also every year, there’s a catwalk show with clothes that feature a heavy dose of the addictive stuff. Last October Belgian manufacturer Callebaut invited young Antwerp designer Harald Ligtvoet to create his version of a sweet dress and he took to the challenge with gusto.Inspired by the fifties, his dress is covered by white-to dark brown cocoa beans that seems to drop from the cute little hat that French model and actress Audrey Hamm shows here. What happened to the dress afterwards is a well-kept secret.

Info Harald Ligtvoet: +32-477-616132.
Designer Patrick Merckaert honors Red Cross volunteers

Thousands of volunteers made -and still make- the Red Cross what it is today: an organisation that simply helps wherever help is neccessary. They are anonymous people, men and women who aren’t in it for the fame, but for solidarity, honesty and a better world. To honor their work, Belgian designer Patrick Merckaert created an art work for the new Red Cross building in Mechelen, consisting of 190 enamel portraits of unknown women and men, symbolising the volunteers. He used 5 colours, each representing one of the continents where the Red Cross is active. For Merckaert, graphics aren’t just illustrations of happenings in the past, present or future, but ways to raise emotions. The visual is not a reportage or a story, but a catalyst. And the viewer is the main actor, whose thoughts can change the perspective of the building.

Art that touches the heart, is there anything better than that?

www.patrickmerckaert.be
The Sailor not the sea
Perfect synergy between music and photography

Ozark Henry –fronted by singer Piet Goddaer- is something of an institution in Belgium, so when his third CD came out, expectations were high. For this CD Piet was inspired by photographs of Scandinavian-born Björn Tagemose, who now lives and works in Antwerp. After completion of the music, the two went to Scandinavia to film three videos and lots of stills, which complement the music seamlessly. With titles such as ‘Indian Summer’, ‘Free Haven’ and ‘At Sea’ already giving fodder to a freely roaming fantasy, the pleasure quadruples when you watch the accompanying visuals. Which of course are featured on the cover of the CD and can be seen on a music TV channel near you soon –but hopefully a DVD will see the light of day as well one day, so the pleasure can be repeated at home whenever you like. We love co-operations like this, we really, really do.


www.ozarkhenry.com
www.bjorntagemose.com
Nico Taeymans, Jewellery and other stories

In Flanders, Nico Taeymans’ jewellery has been renowned for years: timeless pieces in silver, sparkling fashion collections, personal wedding rings and special designs in gold. Lesser known, but equally unique, are his small objects in wood, silver and pewter. Nico Taeymans is a multi-faceted artist and this beautifully illustrated book offers a survey of his work from the early years up to now.

Info: www.nicotaeymans.be
 Mintred© 2004