Dries van Noten
Dries van Noten
Dries Van Notenis a Belgian fashion designer and an eponymous fashion brand. In 2005, the New York Times described him as "one of fashion's most cerebral designers". His style is said to be "eccentric", and fell out of favor during the long period of minimalistic fashion in the early 1990s, only to make a come back towards the mid-2000s, culminating with Van Noten's winning of the International Award of the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2008. That same...
NationalityBelgian
ProfessionDesigner
CountryBelgium
easily luxuries
One of the big luxuries of being in Antwerp is that I can easily walk in the city. In Paris and New York, I am more recognized.
almost aspect aware commercial definitely despite enjoyed learned literally owning selling shop spending time
I think by my father owning a store, I was definitely aware of the commercial aspect of selling clothes. His shop was a place I enjoyed spending time in as a boy, so I learned things almost by osmosis at times, by literally just being around all the action and not really despite myself.
people responsibility work
I have a responsibility to the people who work for me, the manufacturers I work with. There is no point to clothes that don't sell.
coming david kid music pop programmes
I was a kid at the end of the 1960s and in the early 1970s, so a lot of things changed. You had pop music coming up, with David Bowie, you had new television programmes and all these things. I was fascinated.
deciding evenings middle sitting talking
I have my own office, and I'm there during the evenings and weekends. But during the week, I'm sitting in the middle of my studio, talking with everybody, deciding together every detail, every pallette, every yarn, every colour.
To create a collection, you need a narrative - an explanation to tell the team.
design keeping mind women
I don't design for myself. I design something keeping in mind that it has to please a lot of women.
I prefer ugly things. I prefer things which are surprising.
For me personally, there's too much fashion around in this world.
designer fashion grab morning night people pins romantic sketches start table throws vision white women
People get this very romantic vision of a fashion designer who in one night makes 25 sketches and in the morning throws them on the table and there are a lot of women in white aprons with the pins on the lapel and they start to grab the sketches and... It's not like that.
journeys less love prints takes
I love the journeys of research and discovery their development takes me on. I see prints as less 'decorative' than many might, and more fundamental to a garment's core.
color fan flower god middle present
I'm a very big fan of winter-flowering shrubs and bulbs. You have the smell, you have the color - it's really like a present from God when something like that is in flower in the middle of the snow.
My childhood was very, very, very, very traditional.
design
In the design process, there's a need to be culturally comprehensive.