FILE - Belgian fashion designer Dries Van Noten accepts applause after his Fall/Winter 2024-2025 ready-to-wear collection presented Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 in Paris. Van Noten said Tuesday, March 19, 2024, he will step down from his namesake brand at the end of June. (Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP, File)
BRUSSELS (AP) – Belgian fashion designer Dries Van Noten said Tuesday he will step down as creative director of his namesake brand at the end of June.
Van Noten, 65, who over nearly four decades became a master of blending the old with the new, with a luscious use of colors, said in a statement that the 2025 men’s Spring-Summer collection will be the last in his current role. He added that the women’s collection will be designed by his studio.
Van Noten’s successor will be announced at a later stage, he said. The brand said although he will relinquish his role as creative director, Van Noten will still be involved in the fashion house.
“I have been preparing for this moment for a while, and I feel it’s time to leave room for a new generation of talents to bring their vision to the brand,” Van Noten said.
Van Noten graduated from the fashion design course at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Belgium in 1981 and debuted his first collection five years later. His first flagship store opened in Antwerp, the Belgian port city where he was born.
“Now I want to shift my focus to all the things I never had the time for,” Van Noten said. “I’m sad, but at the same time happy.”
