Founded in 2006, WBDM is a public agency set up with the aim of supporting designers and companies in the fashion and design industry to export their know-how abroad, thereby showcasing Belgian know-how.

Since its inception, WBDM has participated in Milan Design Week, the industry’s premier event, every year.

In January 2025, WBDM will participate in the Maison & Objet fair for the 16th time, with a collective physical booth.

These meetings between publishers and designers are an encounter and confrontation between the international production realities and the emerging, albeit confirmed, design in Belgium.

From 2010 to 2016, the Showroom [Les Belges] programme supported fashion designers through collective appearances at the Paris and Milan fashion weeks.

Belgium is Design promotes Belgian design on the international scene. This programme of international collective initiatives was set up with the partner institutions of WBDM: Flanders DC for Design and MAD – Home of Creators.

In 2012, WBDM presented an exhibition “Belgian Design on Tour” at the Liège Design Biennale, Reciprocity.

For the 2015 and 2018 editions, the support for the event took the form of enhancing its international communication and inviting foreign journalists.

Set up in 2011, Belgian Spirit was an initiative of the three regions of Belgium, which chose the Business of Design Week (BoDW) in Hong Kong as its launch pad for the Asian continent, for fashion, design and architecture.

WBDM has been a member of BEDA – The Bureau of European Design Associations since 2014.

Since 2015, WBDM has conducted 188 interviews with fashion and design professionals: designers, but also consultants, artists, journalists, gallery owners and photographers. 

Read the most inspiring interviews.

2016 marked the 10th anniversary of Wallonie-Bruxelles Design Mode.

Conscious of offering adequate support to a wider variety of brand profiles, WBDM launched the Fashion Programme.

The 2024 reedition of Designers from Belgium (originally published in 2017) brings together the work of a selection of 50 design studios from different areas, who with their own character and their own unique language, are gradually defining a universe identified under the project Belgium is Design.

For the Textiles Revealed exhibition presented at New York Textile Month in 2019, the “Textiles” version of the book featuring 50 established and emerging textile designers working in Belgium has been released: Designers from Belgium – Textile edition.

The Brussels Design Museum (at the time called ADAM) invited WBDM to participate in Intersections, the contemporary design biennial.

The “Design Generations” exhibition invited visitors to take a fresh look at design, by highlighting the far-reaching value of this profession, which over the last century has borne witness to and often advocated changes in our society. Ten design offices from Wallonia and Brussels explained their approach through a selection of products from the past (the museum’s permanent collection), the present (their current output) and the future (an imaginary product).

WBDM collaborates every year in the organisation of the Belgian Fashion Awards with the magazines Vif Weekend/ Knack, Flanders DC and MAD – Home of Creators.

Through Belgium is Design, WBDM presented “Textiles Revealed“, an exhibition of the work of 11 Belgian textile designers, organised in collaboration with Li Edelkoort and Philip Fimmano as part of New York Textile Month.

2021 marks the 15th anniversary of Wallonie-Bruxelles Design Mode (WBDM).

Berlin, 21 June 2022. The first truly transnational alliance of European fashion councils and institutions is founded by 25 European fashion organisations to build a beautiful, sustainable and inclusive European fashion ecosystem.

IN OUR NAME Belgium aims to support and strengthen the presence of Belgian fashion on the international stage. This initiative by MAD Brussels, Flanders DC and WBDM aims to encourage emerging and established Belgian designers who focus on quality, sustainability and innovation to penetrate new markets. The aim is to promote Belgian fashion with a strong, common voice.

In August 2024, a first common Belgian presence has been showcased during CPH Fashion Week.