In Milan's high-fashion shopping district, the "quadrilatero d'oro," or golden rectangle, just about all the designers are playing the same game - buy my clothes, they seem to say, and you, too, can look like a fashion model. But not Dirk Bikkembergs, the German-Belgian designer, who opened up his first flagship store here last year.

One of the legendary "Antwerp 6," a group of fashion students who helped put Belgium on the fashion map in the 1980s, Bikkembergs, now 51 years old, has translated a quirky obsession with football into a fashion empire. His new multilevel store, which is meant to resemble a fantasy version of a football player's luxury apartment, is a personal manifesto for an alternative approach to men's fashion. Instead of professional models, Bikkembergs uses real athletes, including former Italian national player Fabrizio Ravanelli, in his advertising and fashion shows, and he tests out his designs on his own football team, FC Bikkembergs Fossombrone, based in the central Italian town of Fossombrone, where his samples are produced. His store is filled with professional football boots, TV screens showing football matches, and emphatically masculine touches, like his fictional football player's real Porsche.