"Some collaborations don't arise from a marketing plan.
They start with a conversation."
For us, it began with a meeting with Brandon Weng from the Antwerp Fashion Department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. We discussed creativity, craftsmanship, and the journey young creators undertake to find their own voice. It was a conversation that stayed with us. Not only because we discovered many parallels between fashion and perfume, but also because it made us reflect on something else. On opportunities.
Every life consists of the opportunities we are given. A meeting. A conversation. A door opening at the right time. Creativity is something precious, but also something vulnerable. Behind every collection, every design, and every creative project lies a person who searches, doubts, tries, and starts over.
Perhaps we recognized something of ourselves in that.
Because building a house, whether a fashion house or a perfume house, shares many similarities. You start with an idea. With a conviction. With a dream often bigger than yourself. Then comes the difficult part: making choices, setting direction, daring to make mistakes, and step by step building something that can one day become meaningful to others.
Antwerp provides an exceptional breeding ground for this. The city has produced generations of designers who have made an international impact. Not because they were the loudest, but because they found their own voice. Because they had the courage to create something personal.
From this idea, the partnership between MIGLOT Parfums and the Antwerp Fashion Department was born.
Not because scent and fashion coincidentally go well together.
But because they are much closer than often thought.
"You can't see a perfume.
You can't smell a garment.
Yet both try to do exactly the same thing:
make a feeling tangible."
Just as a fashion designer selects fabrics, a perfumer chooses ingredients. Both work with texture, contrast, lightness, depth, and emotion. Both build layer by layer a story that is ultimately worn by someone else.
MIGLOT Parfums therefore deliberately positions itself as a Belgian perfume house that treats scent the way designers handle textiles.
From this conviction, the MIGLOT Parfums Award was created.
Each year, one promising student gets the opportunity to create a perfume with us that complements his or her graduation collection. Not as merchandising. Not as a marketing object. But as a full-fledged part of the designer's creative universe.
After all, creativity does not arise in one generation. It is passed on. That is why we wanted to make this collaboration not a one-off project, but an annual trajectory in which new voices can translate scent into their own creative world each time.
Stan Peeters became the first laureate.
What touched us most was not only Stan's work, but also the way he looks at his work. His curiosity. His attention to detail. His willingness to keep searching until something feels right. These are qualities we also recognize in our own profession. Perhaps that was why this collaboration felt so natural.
In a world that sometimes seems to be getting louder, Stan possesses a striking form of understatedness. We saw that same quality reflected in his work. His collection The Body is a Pavilion doesn't cry out for attention. It invites you to come closer. To look. To take your time.
Perhaps we recognized something of ourselves in that again.
Because our MIGLOT Formulas are also rarely the loudest perfumes.
They are the perfumes you truly discover when you take your time.
When Stan first entered our lab, he didn't have a list of ingredients he wanted to use.
He started smelling.
He took his time.
He compared.
He returned to earlier choices.
Some ingredients went home with him. Others even went on holiday. Not because he wanted to become a perfumer, but because he wanted to understand what those ingredients did to him. How they evolved. What emotions they evoked. Which ones best connected with the world he wanted to create with his collection.
Just as he selects fabrics.
Not only with his head.
But also with his feeling.
Some designers start with a sketch. Stan started with materials. During our conversations, we noticed how he approached ingredients just as he approaches fabrics. Not solely based on their reputation, but on their feel, their texture, and their character.
It was fascinating to see how a fashion designer began to read ingredients as he reads fabrics.
Slowly, a selection emerged that kept returning.
Velvety iris.
Distilled yuzu from Japan.
Sambac jasmine from India.
Aged Mysore sandalwood.
Warm amber notes.
Ingredients each with their own texture, their own movement, and their own personality.
From this selection, we started working in our lab.
Not to create a perfume for Stan.
But to co-create a perfume with Stan.
Perhaps scent is the most personal garment we wear. Invisible, yet always present.
It was no coincidence that this perfume felt to us like the final silhouette of his collection. A layer you don't see, but you experience.
The result was an Extrait de Parfum that, like his collection, unfolds gradually. A bright yuzu opening slowly gives way to a warmer, skin-close composition around iris, jasmine, sandalwood, and amber.
No bold statement.
No perfume that seeks to dominate the space.
But a scent that stays close to the skin and slowly reveals itself.
Just like his designs.
The packaging also had to further tell that story.
For the first time, we deviated from our iconic minimalist bottle. Together, we developed a new sculptural form with a wooden cap, chrome details, and a subtle color gradient that refers to the way the perfume develops on the skin.
The bottle therefore feels less like packaging and more like an object.
An object you keep.
Only 1000 bottles of this first edition will be produced.
Not because scarcity is the goal.
But because each year will bring a new story.
A new designer.
A new voice.
A new interpretation of scent.
Each edition will only be produced once, making each perfume automatically a time capsule of a specific creative moment.
In ten years, this perfume will not only evoke a scent, but also a specific moment in the career of a young designer.
Today, Stan is a graduating designer.
Tomorrow, he might be helping to write a new chapter in Belgian fashion history.
Ultimately, we don't select ingredients or fabrics.
We select feelings that we hope someone will someday take home.
We are especially grateful that we were able to be a part of the beginning of that story for a brief moment.
Kristof & Victor
Antwerp, June 4, 2026
The first edition of the MIGLOT Parfums Award will be officially presented during the Antwerp Fashion Festival, from Friday, June 5 to Sunday, June 7. Maison MIGLOT Antwerp is part of the official festival route.
During the festival, we will take visitors through the story behind this collaboration, the selected ingredients, the creative process, and the world of The Body is a Pavilion.
The Extrait de Parfum will be released in a limited edition of 1000 bottles.
100 ml €210
Available at Maison MIGLOT Antwerp, Ghent, and Ostend and via www.miglot.be