Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Up to SCALE: Dries Van Noten







Dries Van Noten is probably my favorite designer. Anyone who has ever gone shopping with me knows that I think most menswear in malls is boring. Whether it is the Gap, J.Crew, or Banana Republic companies just don’t put any thought behind the clothes they sell to men, khakis polos sweaters, repeat. While I know a lot of guys who love those stores and don’t want for anything else, I am certainly not one of them.
That’s why I loves Dries, he does a great mix between really amazingly done staples like suits pants and button ups while mixing in great stuff that will completely make a statement like palm print pants or a magenta fringed scarf. What he puts on the runway is pretty wearable if your brave and his runway collections are the clothes that go into his stores and department stores which is awesome since most of the time what you see in stock from most designers is a dumb down boring version of what they show.
Dries is a product of the Antwerp Fashion Academy in Belgium and still lives in Antwerp. He first hit the scene in 1986 but has only recently gained fame outside his small devoted group of fans and has recently won the International Award from the CFDA. His business is completely self financed, meaning he has no backers that have a say in what he designs and all of the money that comes from his sales go directly back into producing the clothes.
The bottom line is that Dries is a really talented guy who is influencing fashion and is totally worth supporting. His clothes are available in a lot of high end department stores as well as online retailers like yoox.com, also there is usually a good number of his stuff listed on ebay. Dries is a big name designer but his clothes are really not overpriced for what they are considering the thought and quality that goes into them as well as the type of business he runs.

1 comment:

Lincoln said...

dude I agree, i fucking hate shopping at the mall - especially department stores, there's nothing interesting there, i gave up and just wear kahki shorts and pi kapp shirts all the time

become a fashion designer, change the industry