Dries Van Noten

Dries Van Noten

Dries Van Noten launched his first menswear collection in 1986 in Antwerp, showing it in London with five classmates from the Royal Academy who became known as the Antwerp Six. What set him apart from the group was a refusal to chase a single signature look, instead building a reputation on pattern mixing, botanical prints and a stubborn independence from the usual industry calendar.

Shoes

Van Noten treats footwear the way he treats fabric, as another surface to layer pattern and color onto rather than an afterthought. The house has never been a sneaker label chasing hype drops, so its shoes tend to read as extensions of the runway prints rather than standalone logo statements. This selection leans into that instinct, mixing structured heels with the kind of embellished flats that photograph like the rest of the collection.

More Shoes

A second wall of footwear makes the point again: this is a brand built by someone from a family of tailors who thinks in fabric first, shoes second. Expect the same clashing florals and textures that made his early Antwerp Six shows stand out from London's cleaner minimalism. These pieces are less about a single hero shoe than about rounding out a fully considered look.

More from the collection

Van Noten opened his Antwerp flagship, Het Modepaleis, in a converted historic menswear building in 1989, and the shop's mix of old and new still describes how the label designs today. Pattern clash, unexpected color pairing and a slightly literary, collector's mentality run through the rest of the assortment here. It rewards people who want clothes that read as personal rather than seasonal.

More from the collection

Womenswear only became its own line at the house in 1987, a year after the menswear debut, and it has since become just as central to the identity. This grouping keeps pulling on that thread, favoring pieces with print stories over anything plain. It suits a wardrobe built slowly, not one assembled around a single trend cycle.

More from the collection

What keeps Van Noten distinct after nearly four decades is that he never signed with a mega-conglomerate house style, even after Puig took a majority stake in 2018. The collection still looks handmade in spirit, heavy on craft details and unusual textile combinations. This stretch of the edit shows that range, from quieter pieces to the loud florals the label is known for.

More from the collection

The Antwerp Six's 1986 van ride to London Fashion Week is the founding myth of this house, and it still colors how the brand is read decades later: outsiders who made their own rules and were embraced anyway. This closing group of pieces leans into the eclecticism that reputation earned him. It is not a brand for anyone chasing a plain, safe uniform.

Our honest take

Van Noten's strength has always been that he designs like a collector rather than a trend forecaster, and this edit mostly stays true to that. The prints and textures are genuinely distinctive rather than referential, which is rarer than it sounds this many decades into a career. If there is a catch, it is that the sheer variety on offer here can make the range feel a little scattered rather than tightly edited.