ANTWERP - Diamonds are forever!!

Compact, cool and cultured, Antwerp, has as many claims to metropolitan status as its close neighbour and rival Brussels. At the hub of the world’s lucrative diamond market and with a flourishing fashion business, the Flemish capital lies coiled around the sweeping curve of the River Scheldt, 50 odd kms from the North Sea. Beneath ancient watch towers, gothic steeples and the latest modern architecture bustles a multifaceted city where avant-garde models just off the catwalk rub shoulders with Jewish jewel traders in the black hats and frock coats of the 19th century central Europe.

Living at the cutting edge of design has always been a priority here. Until the 1970s, armies of seamstresses toiled in ateliers to reproduce the latest styles from Paris and Rome. But Antwerp came of age as a fashion centre when six young designers from the City’s Fine Arts’ Academy swept the board at London Fashion Week in 1988. Now, beside the wide square of the Grote Markt, the narrow streets of the latin quarter are crammed with enough couture and boutique outlets to satisfy the most voracious fashionista.

Antwerp’s textile history, along with an up-to-the-minute collection of contemporary fashion are now on view at the MoMu fashion museum which is as much a showcase for Belgian intrerior design and architectural prowess as clothes. Then there is is Designcenter de Winkelhaak, which is a new design exhibition space and studios for young designers, created from 30 former brothels.

If the senses are overloaded after so much contemporary and sartorial stimulation, then head for the splendid 19th century Bourla Theatre in the heart of the Latin Quarter. Or if a bit of rough and smooth is more to your taste, push into dark paneled snug of the Café Oud Arsenaal, just off the Grote Markt Square. The bar which serves over 50 local beers, is a venerable institution in this most democratic of cities. Here, market workers, models and even the mayor of the city himself sit side by side.

Blend gastronomy and architrecture at the belle époque quarter of Zurenborg, just below the Central Station, where Antwerp’s 19th century nouveaux riches flaunted their wealth by commissioning extravagant turreted mansions. Here, beneath a classical Greeek facade topped by a gilded statue of the poetic muse, the Euterpia restaurant has the cosy ambience of a late 19th century Parisian café. Euterpia’s regular clients are gem traders from the nearby diamond district - 1 square kilometer of streets lined with shops and dealing rooms, where more than $ 20 billion worth of precious stones change hands every year.

For a less enduring souvenir, head for Chocolatier Burie in the De Wilde Zee area – just south of the cathedral. There, yet more diamonds lie in tempting window display surrounded by sculpted lobsters and cats – the entirety formed of finest Belgian chocolates. The shop, which numbers the Sheikh of Dubai amongst its sweet-toothed clients always busy.

This might also explain the crowds every Sunday morning at the antique markets on the long, winding Kloosterstraat by the river. As this is a city straddling one of the Europe’s oldest trading cross-roads, you can find anything from a ship’s sextant used on a square-rigger bound for Africa to delicate Chinese porcelain from a Prussian nobleman’s family castle on the Baltic.

Now, perhaps is the time to make your way back towards the Grote Markt. Surrounded by people shopping for their Sunday lunch, dally over a simple scoop of grey North Sea’s shrimps and a glass of white wine at Romain Costerman’s fish stall. The shrimps, he says, sharpen the memory, so what better moment to run through your mental checklist just to make sure no stone – precious or otherwise – has been left unturned.