In March 2024 when it was announced that Dries Van Noten, 66, was retiring from fashion, the news was reported in apocalyptic terms. In reality, Van Noten had already considered the idea when he sold a majority stake of his company to the Spanish conglomerate Puig in 2018 (till then he had remained independent). Yet to fashion commentators and to his aficionados, it felt as if his death had just been announced.
Van Noten’s fans had a last chance to rejoice and enjoy his designs at his final runway show, presented last week in a former boiler-making factory in Paris with a co-ed runway.
Throughout his career (he did his first Paris runway in 1991), the designer concentrated on the creations on the runway, focusing on textiles, prints, and embellishments (thanks to his collaborations with manufacturers and artisans, he always produced his own textiles).
Besides, in his collections Van Noten favored cohesiveness and coherence, avoiding distractions - from celebrities, ambassadors in the front row, or artworks used as fashion backdrop. This approach is unusual in our times, where clothes and accessories have become secondary to art references and landmark spaces and venues for shows.
His last show aligned with these principles: a silver foil invitation featuring one word - love - anticipated the runway that was covered in silver leaf.
This was a reference to the designer's A/W 2006 women’s show, where gold leaf was scattered on the runway. It also inspired some of the designs with metallic accents included in the show, such as the fluid tops and loose pants. There were also iridescent accents in light trench coats and jackets in pastel-colored cellophane and in the organza pants and tops, the latter layered on jackets to tone down the color of the design underneath.
Art was referenced in designs inspired by Belgian artist Edith Dekyndt, whose works are often based on elements or natural phenomena, like reactions to water or air in different forms.
The shiny, wet, and glistening texture of the brushed wool designs fused with neoprene and a glass-like polyamide, or an aqua green transparent shirt matched with a silvery suit, called to mind Dekyndt's wood, fabric, and resin pieces, such as those from her "Winter Drums" series (2017) or her work "The Blue" (2019).
A large part of the collection consisted of sensible long, narrow trench coats and coats, some decorated with golden embroideries, others with a camel lapel (maybe a reference to Van Noten’s A/W 2011 collection), plus loose suits and jackets with bullion embroideries and floral prints made with suminagashi.
Used in fashion in collections such as Iris Van Herpen's Haute Couture A/W 2019 and Issey Miyake's A/W 21-22, this time-honored Japanese dye-dropping technique is also known as "floating ink".
This art was born in Japan after the year 1000 as a technique to dye paper using ink (sumi) floating (nagashi) on water. The traces left by the ink are then transferred onto a sheet of rice paper that is laid upon the water.
As a whole, the collection was elegant, functional, and refined - arty, not trendy, but timeless - in a palette that went from navy and camel to deep plum, bright pink, and glistening pistachio, perhaps shades inspired by the flowers in Van Noten's luscious 55-acre park and gardens surrounding his house.
Though everything was well-balanced and the offer was ample with designs for all ages (the casting involved models of different ages - from young people to models who had walked in Van Noten shows in the 1990s), there was a moment of excess in the giant mirror ball that closed the show, hinting at celebrating the designer's achievements rather than his retirement. At the end of the show, some guests picked up the silver foil as a memento from the runway.
The passing of time was evoked in the collection by the voice of David Bowie from Brett Morgen's "Moonage Daydream," stating, "Time, one of the most complex expressions. Memory made manifest. It's something that straddles past and future without ever quite being present."
Yes, time has definitely passed: decades have gone since the Antwerp Six (Van Noten plus Walter Van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dirk Van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs, and Marina Yee) first went to London to showcase their work at a local trade show.
These decades have marked the lives of many designers and fashion houses: some sold their labels and preserved their mental sanity and anonymity (Martin Margiela) - miraculous feats in the fashion world; others fell into spirals of addiction and embarrassment before finding new strength (John Galliano); and others tragically didn't make it (Alexander McQueen).
Van Noten's retirement (albeit not complete as he will be working as an adviser at the company and will still be involved in the brand’s beauty and makeup line alongside the design of its stores, though he will not be able to select his successor or successors) is not a tragedy nor a sign of weakness, but of great honesty and integrity.
It takes indeed courage to quit something, or to take a break, give priority to your mental and physical health, and then give up or come back (remember gymnast Simone Biles at the Tokyo Olympics?).
Most people retire in their sixties, but in fashion, you can keep on creating at your own house as long as you feel like doing it (the industry is full of octogenarians, from Giorgio Armani, 89, to Rei Kawakubo, 81, and Yohji Yamamoto, 80). Yet, nothing lasts forever, and we are all transient (as Bowie's voice stated during the show - "All is transient. Does it matter?").
Retiring at 66 still means Van Noten (and his long-term partner and creative director of his brand, Patrick Vangheluwe, who will be retiring as well) will have the energy to do other things (a chain of boutique flower shops maybe?). After all, as the designer stated on Instagram when he announced his retirement, "My dream was to have a voice in fashion. That dream came true. Now, I want to shift my focus to all the things I never had time for. I'm sad, but at the same time happy."
The feeling lingered in his last message on Instagram before his last runway, "This is my 129th show; like the previous ones, it looks ahead. Tonight is many things, but it is not a grand finale. I think about how Marcello Mastroianni once spoke of a paradoxical 'nostalgia del futuro,' beyond the lost paradises imagined by Proust, and how we continue to pursue our dreams knowing that, at some point, we can look back on them with love."
So no need to be sad, or maybe you can feel sad, but happy too, after all Van Noten preserved his integrity in life and departed with grace and dignity. But just in case you're looking for ways to ease the sadness, rewatch "Dries" (2016) by German filmmaker Reiner Holzemer, the documentary offers a profound insight into Van Noten's vision of beauty and his sources of inspiration, providing a deeper appreciation of his artistic legacy.
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