Behind the Scenes : Adventure in Antwerp
An exclusive look behind the camera for Tibi's Fall & Winter 2025 campaign photoshoot.
As you step out of Antwerp Central Station’s grand atrium and make your way into the heart of the city, you’re greeted by a collage of Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and Tudor architecture, accompanied by bustling plazas, only occasionally interrupted by modern construction. Central Antwerp, almost exclusively navigable through a network of twisting and turning cobblestone roads and narrow alleyways, makes time travelers out of visitors and occupants alike - the facades of every building one passes telling stories of centuries come and past. Upon our arrival in late March 2025 It soon became clear to me why we’d made the decision to pack up all of our gear and fly across the Atlantic - this place was clearly the perfect backdrop for our collections to be put on display.
I could spin you a tale of an infallible crew, operating without hitches, hardships, or hiccups, unfazed by any and all obstacles in their way, and the pictures and footage we returned home with could help me back the claim that everything went exactly to plan…but what fun would that be? I’m here to tell you the real story behind how our team managed the highs and lows inherent in any photoshoot, and the challenges we faced capturing two collections in a city new to almost all of us.
Our home base was the Maison Nationale, a beautiful boutique hotel in central Antwerp which would serve as our makeshift control center. Gabe and I shared a room with little to no issue, but Emmalee was stuck with a far more high maintenance roommate. She would be sharing her space with the entirety of both the Fall and Winter collections and her room would play host to every team meeting held during the trip.
Speaking of which…before we had time to unpack our bags we met to begin discussing our photoshoot locations and logistics for the days ahead.
As we laid out the responsibilities of each team member, it became clear, as so often is the case at Tibi, that our job titles would be quite malleable in the week ahead in our an effort to make our team of 12 feel like a full blown production crew that might usually be assembled for all that we had planned. After the better part of 2 hours the meeting adjourned, we scrounged up some dinner and got the best rest we could before our first day of shooting.
Day 1: The Castle
Our first day of shooting found us marching across a drawbridge and breaching the doors of Kasteel van Zellaer, a 14th century castle, about 30 minutes outside of Antwerp’s city center. The team was in high spirits as we set up shop in what used to be the castle’s chapel - some of us hanging and steaming clothing, others mapping out shots, and our hair and makeup team preparing Noor, our model, for the day ahead.
As the initial adrenaline rush of our arrival began to wear off, the realization slowly crept in that many of us, myself very much included, had severely underdressed for the conditions of the castle. My guesstimate is that it was about 5° (Fahrenheit) colder within the castle walls than outside (which wasn’t a particularly pleasant temperature either), and so we found ourselves bouncing on the balls of our feet to get blood flowing, clinging to coffee cups to keep our hands warm, and taking turns standing in the single beam of morning sun which pierced through a window above the castle’s grand staircase. Noor, showed great resolve as she continuously changed in and out of each look, having little to no time to warm up between shots - a good example of the less glamorous side of life as a model.
But I digress, there’s only so much complaining one can do when having the opportunity to do a photoshoot in a 500 year old castle, and we made the most of all the beauty it had to offer. Our main shots took place in the grand dining hall, the castle’s central staircase, and finally in front of the mossy moat which circled the castle walls. Amy, placed behind a monitor displaying Reed’s photos in real time, would often let out a “[expletive] that’s good!” as more and more stunning photos popped up on the screen.
Day 2: Escalators & Alleyways.
Day 2 was spent exclusively on foot. My phone made note of the statistically anomalous step count that grew greater and greater as we traversed the city. Thanks to the relatively small radius of our pre-scouted locations were never more than a 20 minute walk back to the hotel however, the logistics of traveling with all of our gear and clothing from location to location were far from easy and meant a lot of back and forth between our locations and the hotel. Lugging around the clothing in garment bags, expertly crafted from industrial trash bags, setting up and breaking down camera equipment at each stop along the way, led to heavy legs and tired arms. The constant wrestling with our pop up changing pod, which was prone to losing all structural integrity with the slightest gust of wind was, at first, a source of comedy but soon lost it’s novelty and we eventually we decided that any time it was in use someone (typically me) would serve as an anchor to keep it upright and in place.
The first shots of the day were on the historic wooden escalators leading down to St. Anna’s tunnel. Constructed in the 1930s, the tunnel provides bikers and pedestrians alike a direct path beneath the Scheldt River which cuts between the older and younger parts of the city. The psuedo-Sisyphean, process of riding the escalators up and down, again and again, was dizzying, but well worth the effort. The videos and photos were coming out better than we’d planned for and, just as we were really hitting out stride, everything came to an abrupt and literal halt. The escalators came to a standstill and the highlighter yellow uniforms of Antwerp city officials came into view, peering down at us with expressions of confusion and bother. After a short line of questioning as to what exactly we were doing, the officials asked that we move our business elsewhere. (This would not be our last run in with Antwerpian authorities)
Having packed up the several other looks we had intended to shoot at the location, we made our way into the heart of the old city. Turning down what seemed to be a dead end alleyway, we found ourselves in a quiet courtyard surrounded by buildings at least 200 years old. It was there and in a few other nooks and crannies off the main roads that served as the backdrops for the rest of the day.
Day 3: The Central Station, and My Afternoon by the Drawbridge
Our final day of shooting began where it all begun - Antwerp’s stunning central train station. Having preserved the station’s original facade I was, yet again a reminder of the age of this city and I stood for awhile imagining all those who had walked through the space before me (all the while my team member’s had started to take the photos and videos that we were there to capture). While we were able to get some beautiful content it took less time than our shoot on the escalators for the authorities show up and not-so-kindly explain that it was illegal to film there without a permit. On our way out we did manage to sneak a few more shots in before regrouping outside to decide our next move.
There exists a port house designed by Zaha Hadid, that was built as an extension to, a former fire station, which now oversees incoming and outgoing ships from the North Sea and would serve as the final location for our Antwerp adventure. Unfortunately for me, the team chose a vacant lot next to a drawbridge as our staging ground for this portion of the shoot, about a 10 to 15 minute walk away from the port house itself (a decision that I still fail to understand) and I was selected to guard our valuables while they went off to shoot. There I stood, sat, paced, and pondered for well over an hour waiting for the team to make their return. (I would like to note that the building was not visible from the lot and I was given no timeframe as to when they would be returning so I had no clue what was going on). When the team finally made their return, we shot a few more looks on the drawbridge as the sun began to set until, at last, Amy yelled out “THAT’S A WRAP!” and just like that, Tibi’s Antwerp Campaign Shoot came to its official close.