Dries Van Noten: A Fashion Legend’s Second Act
The Grand Tourist with Dan Rubinstein
Legendary fashion designer Dries Van Noten discusses his transition from the runway to the establishment of the Fondazione Dries Van Noten i
Key takeaways
- Dries Van Noten officially concluded his fashion collections in 2024 after decades of influence.
- The Fondazione Dries Van Noten is headquartered in the historic Palazzo Pisani Moretta in Venice.
Main topics
- Retirement from fashion design
- Founding of Fondazione Dries Van Noten
Notable quotes
The Only True $True Protest is Beauty.
Conclusion
A profound exploration of how creative legacy can be reimagined throug
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:00) I need my daily dose of beauty. It's something which can, for me, makes me, as a human being, survive the ugly world. I'm so nervous that people lose the notion of beauty and that beauty gets more dictated by your phone, by influencers, by things that you see, everything. While for me, the strength of beauty is something deeply and something completely personal. Speaker 1 (0:27) Hi, I'm Dan Rubenstein, and this is The Grand Tourist. I've been a design journalist for more than 20 years, and this is my personalized guided tour through the worlds of fashion, art, architecture, food, and travel. All the elements of a well-lived life. And welcome to the first episode of Season 16 of The Grand Tourist. After our summer hiatus, we're back with new episodes that will take us all the way up to the holiday season. And next month, we'll debut our first fall print issue. coming in at a whopping 416 pages with four different covers to choose from. One of those linen-wrapped covers includes a shot from our story today with the legendary fashion designer Dries van Noten. If you follow fashion at all, then you're familiar with van Noten and his work. Originally part of the famed Antwerp Six Collective in the early 80s, he went on to reach nearly every success a designer or creative can have. He won the International Designer of the Year from the CFDA in 2008, In 2014, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris did a show devoted to him. The next year, France bestowed upon him the title of officer in the Order of Arts and Letters. In 2017, he received the title of Baron from the King of Belgium. The list goes on. His designs have been consistently beloved for their uses of color, techniques, and seeming contradictions. Richness met wearability, opulence met restraint, and masculinity met femininity. To Van Noten, the rules of fashion never really seemed to apply to him. And the field became more personal and our wardrobes became more daring, thanks to his genius. The New York Times probably summed it up best by calling him the icon of creative freedom. But in 2024, he presented his last collection for the house, and one could almost hear the cries of panic from his devoted fans around the globe. While he's still involved with his namesake brand in various ways, he started a new chapter in his creative life, alongside his partner Patrick, who's worked with him in his career for decades. In April, Mr. Van Noten decided it was not time to rest on his laurels, but to give back. He opened the Fondazione Dries Van Noten at the 15th century Venetian landmark, the Palazzo Pisani Moretta, with an exhibition titled The Only True Protest is Beauty. It's a blend of fashion, jewelry, design, art, photography, glass, ceramics, and more. During my interview with Van Noten, I was surprised, frankly, not only how calm he seems after such a massive personal initiative, but that he already has plans to expand the footprint of his foundation in the very near future. I caught up with Dries Van Noten from his foundation's Palazzo in Venice to discuss why education is so important to him, why he chose beauty as the topic for his first show, and much more. Speaker 1 (3:19) You know, for this particular interview, obviously I wanted to begin at the end of one phase of your life and sort of the start of a new one. It's been about two years since you announced your retirement of sorts from the fashion business. So can you take me back to that day that you officially maybe sat down at home, plopped on the sofa and said, OK, it's all done now. Like, what do I do next? Do you remember that day? Was there a day like that? There was Speaker 2 (3:45) not really a day like that because... It was already prepared for quite a long time before. So I decided when I became 59 that I wanted to sell my company because I still wanted to do something else in life than fashion. I started to work in fashion when I was 14. So I thought like when I'm 65, I'm still young enough maybe to start something else. And I know that when you sell your company, you still need to work a few years as a transition period. So that decision was kind of already well prepared, kind of a few years. But then, of course, COVID happened. So instead of five years, Patrick and I, we continued to work for one extra year. So that's why it happened now two years ago. And, Speaker 1 (4:29) you know, you are one of Belgium's favorite sons for creativity. And so the question is, why Venice? And how did that start? It must be, I mean, knowing anything about... architecture and renovations and permissions and things like that and just practicalities venice sounds like truly the most challenging but most beautiful choice at the same time Speaker 2 (4:52) first we thought to start our funder foundation in belgium and it would be a foundation of the foundation um but then very quickly we said like we always loved italy we lived our whole life in belgium so we said like we if we still want to move we have to do it now And then we first thought Rome or Florence. We visited the cities. And by coincidence, we ended up in Venice because Venice was not our first choice. We said already too much art and too much foundation is in Venice. So we're going to be just one of the many. But then we, through a friend, we stayed in an apartment for a while. And staying in an apartment, we really discovered a completely different city. A city which is alive. with incredible shops where you can buy the best food and everything. Very proud Venetians. A lot of young people, very good schools, all different directions, a lot of creative directions, a lot of young people who now also decide to stay in Venice. So there's clearly something bubbling. You have new co-working spaces, you have a lot of creativity, you have small galleries, all those things in fact happening. And it was really a city where Speaker 1 (6:06) we felt very well. Do you also feel this sort of the burden sort of over tourism a little bit with Venice? Because obviously that's a sort of omnipresent difficulty. I Speaker 2 (6:18) think personally that it's still quite okay in Venice. It's great. There's a reputation of having over tourism and everything. I think you can quite easily escape it. uh here in venice so just choose the right hour go a little bit early in the morning and you don't you don't meet a lot of people uh choose different streets and a different neighborhood and it's perfectly okay of course during tourist season you don't have to go to the rialto and san marco but this everybody knows and you have nothing to look for there so that's perfectly okay unless you really want to be in the middle of a crowd which can be also sometimes fun So for me, it feels it's part of kind of like the seasons, like, you know, OK, it's getting warmer, so you're going to get more tourists. But I think when you go to Paris, go to Amsterdam, go even to Antwerp, you have kind of the same thing. So I think it's more the reputation than the reality, of course. I think we are spoiled here that we are on this side of the Grand Canal. And in Sao Paulo, it's already always a little bit more quiet. And of course, we are now, yeah, we have a very happy life here. Speaker 1 (7:28) And obviously, the Palazzo Pisani dates back to the late 1400s. What is the, I mean, purchasing these spaces can be quite challenging, but how did this particular Palazzo come into your... Speaker 1 (7:43) come into your sights because it's quite spectacular and like everything in Venice, but especially right there on the Grand Canal. How did that happen? Speaker 2 (7:53) Coincidence, like a lot of things in my career. And I'm always very attentive to seek for coincidence and things which just happen and that you grab it on the right moment. Originally, we were looking for a space which was not too big, not too complicated and not too decorated, especially. But then we've been looking around for a few months, visited a lot of spaces and more industrial spaces, more spaces in Castello or Canareggio, where you find also some more industrial spaces and things like that. Then one of the brokers said, why don't you go to visit Pisa and Imoretta? And we knew the Pisa and Imoretta because it was used really as a location for a venue. for parties and events. So we assisted there, I think, two parties and we knew it, but it's like, no, far too big, far too decorated. You can't do anything there. It's really Speaker 1 (8:42) something completely different than what we're looking for. Speaker 2 (8:45) Yeah, we went there and then we discovered, in fact, that it's a temple of craftsmanship. So it's decorated in 1730 by the best craftsman of Venice and everything is still intact. So it's really a very special place in that way. We also said like maybe it's a nice challenge also for us, but also for future exhibitions and things like that. And also for future artists who want to work with. But you say you have to become part, you have to work with it. You