Martha Stewart Crafts

LAST week all eyes were on Antwerp and its Academy's famous fashion department, as the graduates presented their master degree collections on the catwalk. Better known for "The Antwerp Six" - amongst them Ann Demeulemeeste r, Dries Van Noten and Walter Van Beirendonck - the fashion department has formed some of fashion's most lauded designers ever since.

SEE THE GRADUATE HIGHLIGHTS

Since the late Eighties, the Flemish Avant-Garde aesthetic has been associated asymmetrical patterns, wildly decorated and processed fabrics, as well as a strong focus on contemporary art, that has become a part of the designer's inventory, blurring the lines between art and fashion.

Macrame cord jewelry, although previously synonymous with hippies, has turn into rather a tasteful accessory.  Mixed with beads or other forms of colorful decorations, macrame cord systems are used to develop the more complicated friendship bands amongst kids and teenagers. Whilst smaller creations like friendship bands did not demand it, bigger works of macrame cord function demanded a metal or wooden rod-like structure so the spreading of cords could be a much less problematic as possible.

Macrame cord is believed to have been invented by the Arabs back inside the 13th Century. The Arabs passed on this tradition and its Arab name ‘migramah’ to the Spanish ‘macrame.’ By the reign of Queen Mary II macrame cord had come to England. It became quite well-liked with sailors who knotted several macrame cord merchandise and traded or bartered them, spreading the practice to the Far East and the New World. By the 1970’s the trend of macrame cords had lessened, specially after the craze that too men and women over in the course of the sixties and virtually diminished but picked up once again and is quite well-known as a number of handmade items like wall hangings, necklaces, anklets and bracelets, modest jean shorts, bedspreads, draperies, clothing – scarves and tablecloths.

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