Dries Van Noten has always been able to take things that don’t belong together—colors, textures, ornamentation, patterns, and prints—and create some harmony among them. Thinking about why this is so, I recalled something the designer said at Forces of Fashion in 2017. Explaining that he works with skilled artisans in Calcutta, Van Noten said: “I just make sure, in every one of my collections, that there are enough different types of embroidery. Even when I say, ‘No, sorry, I really don’t feel like doing embroidery for next season,’ there is embroidery in the collections. Sometimes it’s more visible, sometimes it’s more brass and gold, and sometimes it’s just white on white, but there is embroidery because, in the end, we are ultimately responsible for our 3,000 employees in India.”
Van Noten, who is a passionate gardener, tends not only to green things, but he cultivates relationships as well. That effort to do good, it seems, extends beyond people to the designer’s mad and riotous mixes, some of which have been collected below. The focus here is on a close-up view of the materials and techniques that contribute to the joyfulness of Van Noten’s designs. It seems incongruous that such warmth and sunniness should come from the gray north, but then again, there’s no way to explain magic. You just have to believe. Thank you, Dries, for your many enchantments.
