Every design for Wattrelos

Wattrelos is known first and foremost as a border town: it sits right on the line between France and Belgium, north-east of Lille, and shares its boundaries with Mouscron and Estaimpuis on one side and Roubaix, Tourcoing and Leers on the other. In archaic Dutch it was Waterlo.

Its history is a list of changing allegiances. The town belonged to the County of Flanders, then to the kingdom of France, the Spanish Netherlands and the Southern Netherlands, before settling as part of the Nord. That long back-and-forth has left its people with a nickname, Les coupés en deux, the ones cut in two. The water tells the same story: the Espierre winds on into Belgium, its tributary the Berkem forms part of the border, and the reopened Canal de Roubaix runs along the southern edge.

The Musée des Arts et Traditions Populaires keeps the town's everyday heritage alive, and that is reason enough to wear Wattrelos: a place proudly split between two worlds and at home in both.