DRIES VAN NOTEN SPRING 2021 MENSWEAR

Dries Van Noten is speaking with wry cheerfulness about how COVID-19 has made him rewire the design habit of a lifetime. “You know how fond I was of fashion shows? The whole collection was built up around the idea of putting it on a catwalk. But this time, it was thinking about clothes for a shoot.” With a runway out of the question, Van Noten found himself in the completely new territory of directing photographs and a film. That’s a first in a 34-year career. “Because we’ve never had an advertising campaign. We lost things, but we learned things. It’s pushing a new kind of creativity.”

Another first is the fact that Van Noten has amalgamated his women’s and men’s collections into one—a process of rationalization (cost reducing, too), which was already underway before the pandemic. When you dive into the photographs—partly shot on a breezy day on a Rotterdam beach—the design symbiosis makes total sense: board shorts, Bermudas, easy cotton jackets worn by both boys and girls. “We wanted to work around beauty [that] evokes energy—not one that makes you dream or linger on things that are past, which makes you nostalgic,” he says. “It had to push you to the future, to give energy.”

Van Noten asked the Dutch photographer Viviane Sassen to shoot the images and film. “She captures the moment in a very good way. There’s a directness and she works fast and spontaneously.” Sassen is in the Netherlands, not far from Van Noten’s Antwerp base. Creative groups banding together to make fashion imagery happen locally is becoming a super-interesting phenomenon in every country now. So when it came to making the film, the socially distanced crew moved into a studio in Amsterdam, and the models started dancing in front of what looks curiously like a ’60s-type light show, or possibly some sort of neo-rave type of thing.

In fact, the source is the very much earlier work of the New Zealand artist Len Lye, whose pioneering technique of painting on celluloid film predates psychedelia by decades. “He was such a discovery for me. He started to do this in the late ’20s, early ’30s.” Working with the Len Lye Foundation, Van Noten developed the prints that run through the collection, “psychedelic sun, sunshine and moons, light bars, and palm trees.” And quite brilliant effects they are, for a designer whose innovation must always move forward through print—the attraction for his art-conscious customers—and through pragmatism.

Tough as the times may be, Van Noten has all the elements empathetically calibrated for what people might want to look and feel like next summer. There are jackets made of “two layers of cotton [that] are foiled and slightly padded, very soft, nice to touch”; black papery cotton dresses with cutout necklines; an oversized parka printed inside and out with a new inkjet technique; lots more. Van Noten is never one to hype or overstate any situation. He might, one suspects, even have enjoyed some of the ways the creative chips are falling in the face of the 2020 emergency. “I’m quite happy,” he reflected. “The limitations are not always limitations for me anymore.”

Source: VogueRunway

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Event + Runway Recap Jeffrey Fashion Cares 2018

26th Annual Jeffrey Fashion Cares - An Unforgettable Evening of Fashion and Philanthropy

Jeffrey Fashion Cares Co-Chairs: (l-r) Louise Sams, Jeffrey Kalinsky, Lila Hertz, Jeffrey McQuithy / Photo: Ben Rose Photography

The 26th anniversary of Jeffrey Fashion Cares benefitted Susan G. Komen Greater Atlanta, the Atlanta AIDS Fund (AAF), and the Medical University of South Carolina. Over the course of its history, Jeffrey Fashion Cares has raised more than 15 million dollars for its beneficiaries.  For more information, visit jeffreyfashioncares.com.  

A special thank you to the 2018 sponsors including: Host of the Night - Phipps Plaza; Toast of the Night - Nordstrom; and Presenting – Blue Sky Agency, eventologie, Jeffrey Atlanta | New York, MAGNUM Co., and The Tavern at Phipps. 

Jeffrey Kalinsky’s Fall Trend Forecast: 

If there is one bold font message from the Fall 2018 shows, it’s that fashion is forever changing. In a world where bothmenswear and womenswear are being presented together, brands are evolving from the notion of seasonal collections.

If we had to choose one word to describe the season, it is #EMPOWERMENT. The expression of femininity came in many differentshapes and sizes. From sharp shoulder outerwear, to an array of shine and iridescent colors, Fall 18 was anything but safe.  

Other notable trends we noticed on the runways:

Sparkle:  Traditional sequins just don’t cut it! Your favorite knits, dresses, and coats have been transformed into exploded novelty items. The whirl of paillettes storming down the runway was hard to miss and the most shimmering jumpsuits were sent down the cat walk.

Oversize:  Enormous fashion, anyone? Don’t be afraid to layer up with 2-in-1 pieces or oversized strong shoulder outerwear reminiscent of the 80’s. Designers are delivering exciting collaborations with this trend. 

Sports:  Go team go! Many designers took to the sports culture, each creating their own athletic inspired merchandise.

Neon:  Not afraid of color! Fall 2018 brings you iridescent dresses that can be seen from a mile away.  On the runway, there were eye-popping neons (pink, green, and orange) in every type of fabric imaginable, including florescent infused knits.

Plaid:  Plaid looked richer than ever this season. We saw perfect tailoring to strong outerwear, all featuring plaid or plaid prints.

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Dries Van Noten creates exclusive limited edition marble print raincoats

Originally featured as the finale of his men’s fashion show and to celebrate the arrival of his Autumn / Winter 2018 collection, Dries Van Noten has designed 10 exclusive Ebru marble printed raincoats each with its own color way. A limited stock of 10 of each color will be available at 10 selected stockists worldwide for a limited period. 

The coats will be available from August at Dries Van Noten stores in Antwerp, Paris and Tokyo as well as in selected stockists in New York (Barneys), London (Harvey Nichols), Moscow (Le Form), Tokyo (Isetan, Shinjuku), Hong Kong (Lane Crawford), Singapore (Club 21) and online on Mr Porter.

Tradition embraces technology as this is the first known time this time honored technique of marbling, usually reserved for application on paper for book linings as example, is used for textiles and clothing. The Ebru technique creates motifs when oil based inks diffuse on a water surface and transferred to paper.

It took some time for the Dries Van Noten design team to find a master artist of this technique willing to help impart his knowledge and assist in taking on the challenge of transferring the technique to textiles. Three hundred unique works were created after days spent at his London Atelier.  The idea for the finale of the fashion show, a cacophony of all of all the vivid and vibrant marble prints together was born when all of three hundred marbling samples lay alongside each other on the atelier floor. 

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Dries Van Noten Spring 2017 Menswear

"All those palettes and embroideries that we used in the past I didn’t want to use, so I tried to find new elements in volumes, in shapes, and in putting fabrics together." Dries Van Noten

Yes, Dries Van Noten played with volume, lots of it and he handled it with perfection. So well balanced with fitted double-breasted blazers. Van Noten also gave us prints, pattern and intriguing knits. He was motivated by the Arts & Crafts movement and popular textiles of the 1970's. I can't get enough of this collection. 

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