Christophe arrived in the world at the same time as a tragic fire was in progress at the large Brussels’ store “A l’innovation“. It was 22 May 1967 and 251 people perished in the flames. Half a century later, this event is still the most deadly experienced in Belgium during peacetime. He was born therefore at a time of great national sadness.
Christophe grew up in a working-class family with working-class values. His father was a tradesman and worked as a roofer, while his mother managed the family home with rigour and devotion alongside her work at the factory. At the age of 18 months, he acquired a younger brother. He has shared many common features with Vincent, as well as some elements of tension. The two are very different, but their affinity has never ceased to grow and strengthen as the years progress. They are blood brothers and best friends.
His adolescence began late, when he had already reached the age of 15. He fell in love with motorbikes and in particular with the large air filter and shapely saddle of the Suzuki AC 50 cc, given to him by his grandmother on his 16th birthday. This moment represented the arrival of freedom. Every week, in all weathers, he rode hundreds of kilometres, wearing out his tyres which he tested to the limit.
His adolescence began late, when he had already reached the age of 15. He fell in love with motorbikes and in particular with the large air filter and shapely saddle of the Suzuki AC 50 cc, given to him by his grandmother on his 16th birthday. This moment represented the arrival of freedom. Every week, in all weathers, he rode hundreds of kilometres, wearing out his tyres which he tested to the limit.
An average scholar, his irreverent spirit and quick wit irritated his Jesuit teachers. His loud voice and his rebellious spirit often saw him given detention, during which he would write his essays while cursing authority and the clergy. His taste for eccentric clothing combined with wild haircuts created stress in a school where the observance of the norm was a religion.
While studying at the HEC Management School, he became interested in literature and philosophy. He read avidly and devoured the work of the beatniks, who kindled his desire for wide-open spaces and liberty. Reading freed and challenged him. He immersed himself in it. Formerly a rather happy-go-lucky young man who was good company, his personality darkened. He felt condemned to lucidity and found an existential respite in the aesthetics of poetry.
While still a student, a cultural non-profit organisation, run by a group of veterans from 1968, opened its arms to him. Recruited to beef up the programme of the “Troisième Choix” (nldr. "third choice" in english), he organised rock concerts and set up a film club in a barely furnished barn. The underground scene and auteur films flourished, the public flocked in and the venue quickly enjoyed a national reputation in the alternative media.
With his studies completed, he was recruited by Enjeu to market the stands for the first editions of the Initiatives Forum. He stayed there for two years. No longer able to further defer his call up, he unwillingly joined the Ecole Royale Militaire to carry out his national service, which he chose to undertake in the Netherlands. It was exactly this moment when the love of his youth chose to leave him. After eight years of courtship, Christine was eager for discovery. She put on her hiking boots, picked up a rucksack and spent a year travelling to the four corners of the Earth. It was the end of their time together.
Saddened, he bought himself a bass guitar and after having organised many concerts for others it was now his turn to climb onto the podium and do some “head banging” on stage. He joined a newly-formed band, composed of three unknown musicians in their thirties, with whom he was to forge an unwavering friendship. “Bouées et les creux de la Vague” performed around 30 concerts, in particular in Paris, Cologne, Brussels, Gent and Antwerp, drawing the attention of Jean-Marie Aerts, a guitarist and the producer of Arno. Unfortunately, the prospect of an intoxicating collaboration was never to come to pass.
With little enthusiasm for the idea of facing a professional challenge, he made a living doing small jobs and saved the sum of 200,000 BEF (5000 €) with which he hoped to undertake an initial voyage in South America. Under the chauvinistic influence of his room mate from the army, a Belgo-Argentine, he allowed himself to be convinced that Argentina represented a glorious starting point. He landed in Buenos Aires, in the Constitucion quarter, lived there for a hundred days, supported the Boca Junior football club and attended one of the last matches played by Maradona. He loved this town, the mother of all the tangos of the world, but the call of the road was pressing. He was gripped by wanderlust and itching to stick out his thumb along the “carreteras”. He therefore offloaded most of his baggage and undertook a road trip of more than 15,000 kilometres on the roads of Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Brazil.
Six months later, he was homesick and his financial resources were exhausted. In the aeroplane that took him back to Brussels, chance would have it that he was sat next to the passenger with whom he had made the trip out. They had become acquainted in English and rediscovered each other nine months later in Spanish. His progress in the language of Borgès had been immense. He returned, transformed by this solitary adventure that he would never forget and from which he would draw many personal lessons. Among these, he would always remember that one is never alone when in contact with oneself. That was the end of 1992.
Back in Belgium, he frequented the Verviers artistic environment, undertook a string of unexciting jobs and lent a helping hand to his friend Gilbert in the production of his memoirs. Gilbert was a tormented intellectual. He read Cioran, Kierkegaard, Shopenhauer and Pavese. He pondered on his existence and his unrequited loves. However, this did not stop him from achieving brilliant success in his studies of business culture anthropology at the University of Liège and obtaining the highest distinction. Unfortunately, the day after his academic recognition, against all expectations, Gilbert committed suicide without leaving a word of explanation. Christophe was devastated. He held himself responsible for not having been able to detect or anticipate this desperate act of his long-time friend. On 2 September 1993, Christophe became aware that there would always be a before and after Gilbert.
Recovering painfully from this trauma, he was invited to dine with a couple of friends who wanted to help him overcome his grief. They also invited Anne, a teacher who had just simultaneously been through a serious road accident and the breakup of her relationship. Their reciprocal sadness brought them together and after several months of occasional meetings, their love story began during a Scabs concert.
As Christophe’s career stabilised, the couple acquired a house in Dison, which he fully restored. Christophe discovered unknown talents for manual work and, after six months of uninterrupted labour, they moved into their new home. Reassured by this new environment, Anne became pregnant several months later. Unfortunately, while the pregnancy progressed and all the signs were good, the baby stopped moving several days before the due date. The autopsy could provide no answers to their questions, presaging a dark period for the couple.
Without delay, Anne became pregnant for the second time and at the end of a perfect but nevertheless stressful pregnancy, she gave birth to a young boy, Arthur, a year to the day after the death of their first baby. Two years later saw the arrival of Georgia, to complete the family.
Enjoying a more favourable professional situation, his attraction to two wheels resurfaced and, in the Dison show-room of Lejeune Motorsport, he fell in love with the BMW Rockster 1150R. Despite the exceptional qualities of its chassis and the racy and aggressive side to its design, this single seater had only a modest commercial success. This is why Christophe will never be separated from his motorcycle, hoping one day to restore it to its former glory.
Enrolled in a group of bikers who are more experienced than him, he criss-crossed France and set out on long epics, minutely guided by the group’s leader, Michel Boyens. He then acquired a BMW RT 1200 that was more suited to this type of trip, with incomparable comfort and stability. He accomplished 20,000 kilometres before falling heavily, some years later, on summer ice on a minor road in the Jura. Although only superficially injured, he faced up to the tragic consequences that he had narrowly avoided. He decided to store his great road bike in the garage. It was never to come out again.
More passionate than gifted, Christophe spent the evenings composing music in the small studio that he had set up in his cellar. Moving from 4 to 6 strings, the guitar became his new instrument of choice and his attraction for the “Pulp Fiction” style prompted him to become interested in its specific and very typical sounds. This lead him to visit the Music Store in Cologne where he fell for a Gretsch White Falcon which he combined with a vintage “delay” and a “reverb”, allowing him to hook up with the typical sound of the sixties. He composed some 20 songs steeped in the “road movie” style, which alas only achieved success on the headphones of his own i-Pod.
Then a couple of his friends had been living for a little while in Senegal, and Christophe was driven by a desire to take his family there. For this first experience, he rented two rooms in an authentic lodge situated on the edge of N’gaparou beach, on the little coast, 50 kms South of Dakar. Owned by a couple of French expats, it was here that he discovered the sweetness of life in this country, the warmth of the inhabitants, the flavours of the local cuisine and the deep blue of the sky, with which the family fell in love. Besides all this, the country offered such a feeling of security that on this immense white sand beach, Arthur and Georgia could pass their days alongside djmbé players, jewellery craftsmen and wandering vendors with whom they shared the famous “ataya”, sugared green tea scented with fresh mint. Won over by the assets of the country and its beneficial effects on relieving his stress, he was to return there many times, sometimes staying in luxurious villas, sometimes staying with friends, and even “roughing it” when he took to the tracks in his 4X4 which he had bought while there.
Although his family life truly fulfilled him, there was a paradox. He was becoming closer to a young colleague, Céline Léonard, who had joined the CCI team several years earlier. He became enamoured and fell in love with her in a few weeks. This delicate situation devastated him, because the idea of ending his long relationship of 17 years horrified him, while equally he regretted not listening to his heart which was enjoining him to engage in this new life. He was torn between two of his fundamental values: reliability and adventure. A man dominated by the heart rather than reason, he left Anne, while ensuring that she lacked for nothing and launches himself into writing a new chapter of his life alongside Céline.
Initially as tenants, Céline and Christophe deposited their suitcases in a villa nestling in the middle of the fields at Julémont (Herve). Walter, a wire-haired dachshund, was the new darling of this recomposed family which was particularly concerned to allow Arthur and Georgia to become acclimatised to the changes brought about by paternal choices. Although they were both undergoing satisfactory schooling at the Collègue de Herve, Christophe, who several years earlier had opted to become self-employed, convinced Céline to imitate him. Thus together they created Iconoclash, a company which they located in Saint-Nicolas, within the new family home.
Seventeen years separate them. Aged 46, Christophe understood the maternal desires of his sweetheart and after five years of rich intensive love, he trusted her intuition and Céline gave birth to Jeanne, followed two years later by the birth of her brother Marcus. Almost 50 years old, Christophe was the proud father of four children. However, he had never been married. Thus it was that on his 50th birthday he married Céline, while dressed in a striped sweater and bright red tartan trousers, in homage to his idol, Jean-Paul Gaultier.