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Dries Van Noten Shoes

A Jesuit education instilled moral rigour and pragmatism. From his family Dries Van Noten Shoes derived a precocious awareness of the garment industry’s rites and traditions. It was hardly surprising that he should develop a fascination with fabrics, colour, texture and form. At an early age, he started to accompany his father to the fashion shows and salons of Milan, Düsseldorf and Paris, imbibing the merchant aspect of the trade.

In 1976, at the age of 18, Dries Van Noten Shoes entered the fashion design course of Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts. While continuing his studies, Van Noten began to work as a freelance designer of commercial collections. By 1980 he was designing children’s clothing, as well as sports and casual wear for a Belgian manufacturer. At the same time Dries Van Noten Shoes worked as a buyer for his father’s Antwerp boutiques. This practical experience would prove invaluable when he eventually started to produce and retail his own designs. The same year he met Christine Mathys, who would be his business partner and tireless champion until her death in 1999.

After graduating, Van Noten continued to freelance before going on to produce his own collection of blazers, shirts and trousers. The line met with almost immediate success on its launch in 1986, selling to prestigious customers like Barneys New York, Pauw in Amsterdam and Whistles in London.

In September of the same year, Dries Van Noten Shoes opened a tiny eponymous boutique in Antwerp’s gallery arcade. Here he sold his men’s and women’s collections, which were initially made from the same fabrics.

His fellow students at the Academy had included Ann Demeulemeester Shoes, Dirk Van Saene, Marina Yee and Walter Van Beirendonck, and the group had maintained close contact after graduation. In 1986, along with their compatriot Dirk Bikkembergs, they travelled to London and showed together at the British Designer Show, where they found international recognition as the ‘Antwerp Six’.

In 1989, he quit his modest boutique for a five-storey former department store in the Nationalestraat, then a down-at-heel district with little promise. Ironically, this listed historical building had once housed his grandfather’s greatest competitor. Dries Van Noten set about restoring it, retaining many of the original fixtures and fittings, including the name Het Modepaleis, or The Fashion Palace. Today the area is noted for its upmarket boutiques.

With the company expanding quickly, in 1991 Dries Van Noten opened a Parisian showroom and press office in a former art gallery in the heart of the Marais. His first foray outside Antwerp was quickly followed by the opening of a second showroom in Milan.

In July 2000, the company moved to a 60,000 sq ft dockside warehouse on Godefriduskaai, which had billeted both German and Allied troops during the war. This six-storey industrial space now accommodates every internal department of the company, including design, marketing, production, accountancy, distribution and archives, right through to the top floor showroom with its sweeping views over Antwerp.

Dries Van Noten Shoes has been financially independent since its inception and today sells over 100,000 pieces every season. Besides the company’s own stores in Antwerp and Hong Kong, the collection sells in over 400 stores and web stores worldwide, from New York to LA, via London, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, the Middle East and Tokyo.

Biography available at www.driesvannoten.be