In 1986 Dries van Noten kickstarted his fashion career when he and five other graduates from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp (including Ann Demeulemeester and Walter van Beirendonck) crammed into a rental van and drove to a London trade show. Known as the Antwerp Six, their avant garde designs put Belgian design on the map.
Thirty-eight years later, on Saturday night in Paris, van Noten penned his final fashion chapter with a swan song show for his eponymous label. The show took place just three months after van Noten, in a move that shocked the industry, announced his retirement. “My dream was to have a voice in fashion,” he penned in a public letter. “That dream came true. Now, I want to shift my focus to all the things I never had time for.”
