Antwerp design guide

What are the best spots for design lovers in Antwerp, Belgium?

This Antwerp design guide will introduce you to the city’s wonderful design scene.

I’d known little about Antwerp’s design scene at first, but after spending a month there, I found the best streets for design shops and that the city centre is practually a playground for design lovers.

I also found out that Antwerp has played a significant historical role in the design world, especially in fashion and print.

One of the best things about Antwerp is that’s it’s a walkable city, so you can take a self-guided tour and visit all the places in this guide on a short city break in Antwerp.

Get an offline map of this tour: This article is now featured on GPSmyCity. To download this article for offline reading or create a self-guided walking tour to visit the attractions highlighted in this article, go to Walking Tours and Articles in Antwerp.

Best Antwerp streets for design lovers

There are three streets in Antwerp I recommend design lovers to visit:

Kammen Street
Klooster Street
Statie Street

The first two are close to each other and the last one is in a different district in the south of the city.

Kammen Street – Antwerp design and fashion hub

Walk along Kammen Street to find trendy fashion shops and some jewellery shops. It’s also very close to Antwerp’s fashion museum.

Here are some of the coolest shops I found there:

Wunderkammer Stad Leest made me fall in love in seconds 🙂 It’s a huge design shop, especially for prints, but also for all sorts of beautiful items for the home and garden.

Mo.ment is a homeware shop that stands out with its bright pink and orange window. Inside are two floors full of colour.

Rains is a unique shop selling waterproofs. The design is super minimalist.

Bolia is a home decor shop featuring new Scandinavian design.

American Vintage is a large retro clothing shop.

From Kammen Street, you can reach Klooster Street, the next design street, easily on foot.

Before you enter Klooster Street though, you’ll pass through Oever Street, where I found some great design shops too:

Monique Stam is a great vintage interior design and fashion shop spanning several rooms with a special retro atmosphere that’s hard to ignore.

Anna + Nina is a charming jewellery shop that also has some lovely homeware.

Unikfabrik is a very sweet shop that sells handmade and upcycled items, jewellery, kids’ clothing, and more.

Klooster Street – Antwerp design shops

Klooster Street has a truly impressive collection of design shops of all kinds.

Here are some of the best shops on this street:

Supergoods is a sustainable fashion concept store that also has accessories and gifts. It’s a very chilled and aesthetic shop.

Akanthos Eclectic Interiors has a wonderful collection of 20th-century decorative art. Check the opening hours because when I was there it was only open during the weekend.

Erik Tonen Books is a fascinating art bookshop that also sells antiques.

The Recollection is a retro-style and contemporary shop. It’s much larger than it might look from the street and has a mix of home decor, fashion, and art.

Purdey D Design is a spacious interior design shop.

The lab + is a large fashion shop with a nice cafe.

Espoo is a large, elegant, contemporary home decor shop.

Seventy One is a super colourful shop for vintage-style fashion and accessories.

Koetshuis is a crammed, colourful, maximalist antique shop.

Talking Walls has a great concept of converting urban art into scarves and other textiles.

There are quite a few more, but this selection should give you a taste of what to expect on this street.

Statie street

If you find yourself in Berchem, the district in the south of Antwerp, you can visit some of its lovely design shops, not too far from the Berchem train station.

TLNT (Talent In De Buurt) features Belgian and Dutch designers, eco-friendly items, vintage finds, and original gifts.

Tangerine Sunshine is a sweet, colourful shop featuring Belgian brands and 1980s retro designs.

Host is an elegant concept store for sustainable fashion and lifestyle items

Kupuku was a cool surprise – it’s Antwerp’s Japanese design shop, with kawaii designs, Bento boxes, and a very friendly owner who followed her passion and her love for Japanese culture.

While you’re in the area, check out Antwerp’s most flamboyant steet, Cogels Osylei.

MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp and the Antwerp Six

Antwerp has a history as a fashion hub, with some world-famous fashion designers, a fashion school, and a fashion museum.

I must admit I’d never associated Antwerp with fashion, but that’s something I found out about when I visited the fashion museum (MoMu).

The museum has an interesting permanent exhibition, with a selection from the museum’s extensive collection of items. They’re presented by theme, like time period or style.

There’s also a temporary exhibition worth checking out.

In the museum, I also learnt about The Antwerp Six. They were a collective of fashion designers who gained popularity in the 1980s. They studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. They rose to fame thanks to unique and innovative designs.

The streets around the museum have many high-end boutiques and interesting indie shops.

I also enjoyed spotting fashion students sporting gorgeous outfits, they seemed to be everywhere around that part of the city.

Antwerp’s print and typography history

Antwerp has a legacy in the world of printing and typography.

It was home to one of the most prominent printing and publishing houses in Europe, which dates back to the 16th century.

The Plantin-Moretus Museum tells the story of this print house.

After visiting, I wrote a full review of Plantin-Moretus Museum. Here are some of the highlights:

A live demonstration of an old printing press;
Old and new fonts, and how typecasting works;
An impressive collection of printed materials from atlases to science books.

The Plantin-Moretus Museum is a great place to visit for design lovers in Antwerp if you’re curious about typography and print.

Browse more design guides

This article is a part of my series of design guides, where I share the best aesthetic places for design lovers in cities I visit, such as:

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