Earlier this yr, one explicit retirement announcement inside the vogue neighborhood broke many hearts. Dries Van Notendecided to step away from his position as Artistic Director of the eponymous label he based in 1986, explaining in a gracefully written leaving assertion that he desires to focus his time and power on “all of the issues I by no means had time for.” He additionally famous, “I really feel it’s time to depart room for a brand new technology of skills to deliver their imaginative and prescient to the model.”
In the present day, six months after Van Noten’s emotional ultimate runway present in Paris, that new technology is stepping up. The label has appointed Julian Klausner to the place of Artistic Director, who will present his first assortment for Dries Van Noten throughout the January menswear season.
Klausner isn’t a family title, however he has labored on the vogue home since 2018 and understands the essence and ethos at its core. Klausner was overseeing the ladies’s collections at Dries Van Noten and earlier than that, he was a junior designer at Maison Margiela. He additionally attended and graduated from La Cambre in Brussels in 2016, asike Van Noten did and can be a fellow Belgian. In keeping with a press release this morning from the home’s founder, “He isn’t solely a gifted designer but in addition a transparent option to take over after my departure.” He added, “His deep understanding of the model and its values will guarantee a seamless transition and a brilliant future.”
Van Noten has at all times put imaginative and prescient first. Even after promoting a majority stake of his model to Puig in 2018, the designer by no means compromised his singular strategy to creating garments, to dressing a sure sorts of women and men who imagine that prints are supposed to be clashed and that fashion is a vessel for boundless curiosity. That Van Noten selected to advertise somebody inside, to raise an individual whose title hasn’t been splashed throughout the myriad of headlines this yr about who ought to go to the large European behemoth manufacturers and who shouldn’t, who deserves to be at this model and never, isn’t simply courageous, it’s completely the best factor to do.
There’s nice expertise in every single place on this trade, however so usually the race to the highest spots of probably the most iconic (and worthwhile) homes turns into one thing extra akin to a celebrity-making recreation–take X designer with Y resume, put a ton of energy and cash behind them to hope clients need to purchase into what they’re making. Usually, their aesthetic, their singular codes, nevertheless highly effective, can get misplaced within the eagerness to place model over imaginative and prescient. Van Noten’s label has by no means made branding the underside line. The designs don’t want advertising; they communicate for themselves, they usually do it within the covetable textures, patterns, and silhouettes the home is understood for. To be a quiet power doesn’t imply you’re making any much less of an affect. With humbleness and idealism, Van Noten has at all times confirmed that an funding in creativeness, within the spirit of the garments, is the one method ahead in vogue. By appointing Klausner, it’ll little question push the Dries Van Noten model even additional forward.
Brooke Bobb is the style information director at Harper’s Bazaar, working throughout print and digital platforms. Beforehand, she was a senior content material editor at Amazon Style, and labored at Vogue Runway as senior vogue information author.
