The Collective Cry of the Fashion Bros: No Dries! Don’t Go!

As a trillion- money international business, fashion is almost the magic factory often depicted in the press. Yet it does make magicians. One such is the French artist Dries Van Noten, whose news this month that he would be hanging up his dress and retiring after 40 years at his namesake label occasioned an outpouring of reminiscences, especially from fashion pros like the men’s wear experts interviewed above.

Michel Gaubert, good producer:” I did all the Evaporates shows from 1999 to 2005, and what I admired is that his was a really strong message of freedom. He was n’t owned by a major economic class, which meant that, like Rei Kawakubo or Rick Owens, he always had to have the hit case or a beat T- clothing. His conversation was no through advertising but his clothing displays. They were his only communication, which is why they were so properly considered and refined”.

Nick Sullivan, artistic chairman, Esquire:” One display in Paris was held in this cup- covered 19th- millennium passage filled with American shops. It was done along the entrance, and customers were crammed into chair set on either side, with the visitors going on about their searching. At the end, Dries got people to throw rose petals out the windows of the upper floors. It was one of those moments you do n’t forget”.

Gaubert:” The shows made you wonder what happened to you after you saw them. They never left you with no feelings. Dries was very, very meticulous — it was always about these worlds he’d create. One of the first I worked on was in a greenhouse in the Bois de Boulogne. The day before, they discovered that the greenhouse door was not the green he wanted. They could n’t find the exact paint in Paris, so he sent to Belgium for it”.