The New Poetry of Dressing: Klausner’s Dries Van Noten
This season, in my frame was Julian Klausner, who became the house’s new creative director after last summer’s farewell of Dries Van Noten, the legendary Antwerp-based designer who led his label for thirty years.
A man in love wanders at dawn after the party. His shirt unbuttoned, his sleeves rolled up. The silhouette takes on a new life. I asked myself: what is formal? What is casual? What do they make us feel? A narrow tie, a double-breasted jacket, a heavily embroidered fabric came to mind. But also a pareo wrapped around the waist, sand on the feet, a mismatched shoelace, shells and small memories worn as a necklace… This collection speaks of an attraction to spontaneous gestures. And, of course, it is accompanied by the music of Lou Reed.
Klausner signs off his note — simply “Julian” — with a line from Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”.
On my way to the re-see, my mind was full of the deep feelings Julian Klausner, who wrote that paragraph, had stirred in me, and I wondered through what lens he would interpret the history of the house. I watched with admiration a vision that experiments with textures and colours, fearlessly placing and pairing each piece side by side. Presenting evening elegance and a sporty look as one contemporary collection, Klausner combined this beautifully blended mix with vivid colours, eye-catching prints and shimmering embroidery. Without straying from the house’s roots, he revived them with a new purpose. The deliberate dissonance written into the house’s codes lived within contrast and chaos — but a chaos with purpose. The collision of opposites was full of confidence. There were pieces that made you think about dressing, and even designs that made you question the very way we think about getting dressed.
“Approaching this collection, I thought about the Dries Van Noten wardrobe I have always loved. Traditional but bold. The layers of dressing…”
HIGHLY EXPRESSIVE COLOURS, EMBROIDERY AND A TOUCH OF FANTASY
Klausner described his way of working like this: “Trying to play with something very elegant, while keeping a relaxed attitude.”
At the heart of the collection is that dishevelled elegance that follows the night, in a city washed by the first light of morning. Klausner explains this feeling through the “blissed out” spirit of that legendary 1993 image of Nirvana wearing Dries Van Noten. This collection reminds us that dressing is not an action but a form of expression. To me, that is exactly the point of the collection. An elegance that glows with the calm and fatigue that follow the fun.
There is an unexpected sweetness in the silhouettes. Sarongs and pareos add fluidity while stepping outside classic patterns. Every piece I saw was wrapped in unexpected feelings, both sensual and graceful. “Dries always managed to be bold but accessible. For me, keeping that balance is very important,” says Klausner. The collection I saw truly is theatrical yet wearable, graceful and masculine, wandering in that peaceful place between fantasy and unexpected emotion. A poetic union of formal and casual, masculine and feminine, past and present.
A collection that plays between classic tailoring and youthful style, moving back and forth between formality and ease. Rich embroidery and sporty silhouettes intertwine. Pieces worn in layers, then taken off; the pleasure of putting them back together.
And at the centre, a classic: the cummerbund. Sashes in intense colours, with ribbed lines and swirling embroidery, redefine the waist. The colour palette is as assertive as the feeling: red and teal, lilac and orange, khaki and grey marl.
The eveningwear is unstructured yet theatrical, like a night that lasts until morning.
From night to morning, from formal to casual, from dream to reality — in this passage the clothes are as peaceful as a walk on the beach, and as light, bold and deep as a moment of love… Every look seems to touch a lover’s morning.