MilanStyle profiles some of fashion’s, and in particular, menswear’s, most important designers, continuing with Dries Van Noten.
INTRODUCTION
Dries Van Noten is often cited as one of most important names in menswear today. His signature style is continental and understand and his colour palette famously juxtaposes his favored muted colours against vibrant, electric neons.
A menswear designer originally, (later branching out to womenswear), Dries Van Noten, like all the best fashion designers, has a background steeped in menswear tailoring and is the third generation in a family of tailors. This background is easily seen in his menswear collections, and indeed in the very dapper man himself. he Dries Van Noten menswear customer is frequently described as someone who takes an ‘intellectual approach’ to fashion, ‘intellectual’ in this sense simply meaning someone who is thoughtful and considered as to how pieces are worn together. The man who wears Dries Van Noten will not tolerate garish logos or ostentatious branding – for him clothing is about artfulness, considered details and surprising twists to otherwise ‘plain’ items.
Like all of his contemporaries from the ‘Antwerp Six’ designer collective (Belgium’s 80s graduates from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts), Dries Van Noten inspires a cultish devotion, with fans frequently buying his entire collection each season, collecting them as if they were fine art. However, he has no interest in the modern day cult of celebrity which surrounds other fashion designers (typically Italian) and insists his clothes do the talking for themselves:
“I think I tell enough about myself when I make my clothes and when I show them. I don’t need people to buy clothes for who I am; I prefer them to buy things that I create. I don’t want to hide myself — I think I am actually quite open about a lot of things. But my private life has to stay my private life.”
Especially noteworthy about the label is that to this day, he and his label remain entirely independent as a fashion label with no backing from any luxury goods group, yet still managing to be profitable and stocked in the world’s most upmarket boutiques and department stores. This is a particular accomplishment for a fashion house that does not and has never advertised.
Dries Van Noten: Menswear Show AW11 - Outerwear.
Dries Van Noten: Menswear Show AW11 - Classical Tailoring.
BACKGROUND
Dries Van Noten was Born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1958, into a family of tailors with fashion retail also in their blood.
Between WW1 and WW2, his grandfather reworked second-hand clothes by turning them inside out and introduced Antwerp to the concept of ready-to-wear. In 1970 Dries’ father opened a large upscale fashion boutique in the outskirts of Antwerp followed by a second outlet in the city centre where he sold collections by Ungaro, Ferragamo and Zegna.
As a boy, he went with his father to see the fashion shows and collections of Europe, along the way, learning as much as possible about the commercial and technical side of the profession, both creatively and commercially. However, he soon decided that he was more interested in designing fashions than selling them. In 1976, at the age of 18, he entered the fashion design course of Antwerp’s Royal Academy. While continuing his studies, Van Noten began to work as a freelance designer for commercial collections for a Belgian manufacturer. This practical experience would prove invaluable when he started to produce and retail his own designs.
After graduating, Dries Van Noten continued to freelance before going onto producing his own collection of blazers, shirts and trousers. The line met with almost immediate success on its launch in 1986 selling to prestigious customers including Barneys New York.
In September 1986, Dries Van Noten opened a tiny eponymous boutique in Antwerp’s gallery arcade. Here he sold his men’s and women’s collections, which were initially made from the same fabrics.
In 1989, he quit his modest boutique for a five-storey former department store in the Nationalestraat, and opened his department store ‘Het Modepaleis’ which still trades today.
Dries Van Noten: Menswear Show AW10 - Outerwear.
DRIES VAN NOTEN : A HISTORY
- 1976 – Enrols at Antwerp’s Royal Academy and effectively becomes one of ‘The Antwerp Six’ at this point.
- 1989 – Opens ‘Het Modepaleis’ – a Dries Van Noten department store.
- 2000 – Dries Van Noten moved into the 60,000 sq ft warehouse on Godefriduskaai, Antwerp, which had billeted both German and Allied troops during the war. This six-storey industrial space now houses the showroom and all other business aspects of his label.
- 2005 – The New York Times describes him as “one of fashion’s most cerebral designers“.
- 2008 – Awarded the ‘International Award of the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
- 2009 – Awarded the ‘Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres’ in Paris.
“I don’t like to create head-to-toe outfits. I prefer to make garments for people to wear in lots of different ways. It’s important that they can make the clothes their own and wear them in any way they want to express what they want to say about themselves.”
