Dries Van Noten took his final bow in Paris on Saturday as the Belgian designer presented his last collection after announcing his retirement earlier this year.
In true Dries Van Noten fashion, the clothes – and shoes – did not disappoint. For spring/summer 2025, the designer highlighted several footwear styles.
Shoe highlights this season included a glove boot featured in a soft structure in lamb or denim. Other silhouettes he is known for like mules, moccasins and cross-strap sandals were also presented in various colorways on the runway. Flip-flops enhanced with shearling and velvet, also made an appearance this season.
“This is my 129th show; like the previous ones, it looks ahead,” Van Noten wrote in his final show notes. “Tonight is many things, but it is not a grand finale. I think about how Marcelo Mastroianni once spoke of a paradoxical ‘Nostalgia del futuro,’ beyond the lost paradises imagined by Proust, and how we continue to pursue our dreams knowing that, at some point, we can look back on them with love. I love my job, I love doing fashion shows, and sharing fashion with people. Creating is about leaving something that lives on. My sense of this moment is how it is not only mine, but ours, always.”
Van Noten stated in his notes that he was inspired by contemporary Belgian artist Edith Dekyndt this season, and how she considers time and the transformation of materials across her body of work. “Following the manipulation of everyday objects and mixed media, she creates compositions in transparent vitrines that display the effect of time,” the designer stated.
As for the rest of the collection, highlights included the use of Suminagashi – a traditional Japanese marbling technique dating back 1,000 years that involves ink patterned atop water, which is transferred to and absorbed by the fabric. In Japanese, the word for fireworks, “hanabi” combines flower and fire. Suminagashi across the collection features large, graphic leaves and flowers, like fireworks blooming in the night sky. One-sided with natural imperfections, every piece is unique.
Known for his embroideries, this collection features gold bullion in relief to precious stones. Embellishments are clustered and patterned in various forms like fragments of memory. Couching, a stitch technique, creates a degradé of fine gold and silver yarns.
