Most of the clothing that gets exhibited at fashion month will never leave the catwalk. Just one version is made, to be worn once, by one model. It is, after all, the boring stuff that most often sells.
But is one of the few designers to have produced all of his show pieces season after season, which I think is indicative of the generosity in which he has always designed. His clothes – colour-rich, spirit-raising – give tangible meaning to people’s lives. That is because beauty, for Van Noten, seems a moral obligation, which he tended to for five decades with just as much care and imagination as his gardens in the Belgian countryside.
Since launching his namesake label in 1986, the work of the designer – who is one of the founding members of – has appeared in British countless times in shoots with the likes of , , and . As Van Noten takes his final bow at Paris Fashion Week, revisit some of his most exquisite clothes in the pages of . For the February 2023 issue of British , Rafael Pavarotti shot the legendary Grace Coddington and model Anok Yai in twinning Dries Van Noten designs.
Gisele Bündchen posed for Corinne Day in the June 2002 edition of British . She had been dressed, of course, in Dries Van Noten. A pantheon of beauties for the May 2020 issue of British , shot by Scott Trindle and styled by Jack Borkett.
Note the clashing florals, a Dries Van Noten signature. In a rare example of a fashionable cruise, Jason Schmidt shot Dries Van Noten for the November .
