Belgian designer Dries Van Noten's final farewell collection

Belgian designer Dries Van Noten's final farewell collection

The show did not end on a sad note, but rather on an optimistic note, as endings are only beginnings, as designer (E.B.A.) confirmed.

Few people retreat from the spotlight while they are at the top. Belgian designer Dries Van Noten is one of them. During Paris Men's Fashion Week for Summer 2025, he presented his last collection, the closing act of a career spanning nearly four decades, and there is no doubt that June 22, 2024, will remain historic for his fans.

In La Courneuve, north of Paris, the designer presented his Spring/Summer 2025 collection to an audience that felt less like they were watching a fashion show than witnessing the end of a story written by a designer who did not submit to the dictates of fashion, but rather imposed his respect on it, by remaining true to his style and convictions.

In the 1990s, he founded, with five Belgian designers, a school of its own, characterized by boldness and sophistication, and they became known as the "Antwerp Group", and they are Anne Demeulemeester, Dirk Van Saene, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dirk Bekemborg, Marina Yee, and of course him: Dries Van Noten.

They all graduated from the Antwerp University of the Arts, and opened their workshops in the city, and did not leave it for any of the world's fashion capitals despite the temptations. Despite the differences in their artistic views, or rather their details, creativity was their first and last driving force.

Van Noten was the most famous of them, to the point that he was nicknamed "the Flemish master of fashion"; so when he announced his retirement a few months ago in an open letter, the fashion world was surprised, because he was at the height of his artistic and commercial success. “I feel it is time to give a new generation of talents the space to express their vision and inject new blood into the house,” he said, noting that Van Noten, the fashion, accessories and perfume house, would continue without him and would be run by a team that had worked with him for years. Before retiring, his only condition for the Spanish group Puig, which acquired a majority stake in his house in 2018, was that the team remain in Antwerp, so that they could be far from the noise and influences of the fashion world.