The curtain fell and the disco ball was raised celebrating 38 years and 150 collections of Dries Van Noten, who staged his final fashion show Saturday at Paris Fashion Week.
The Belgian fashion maestro, a member of the influential “Antwerp Six” known for his innovative and unexpected elegance, announced his retirement in March of this year.
Meanwhile, golden feathers cascaded down models’ concealed faces at Loewe for a show that evoked myths and sartorial whimsy. It set the stage for a more subdued collection this season from Northern Irish designer Jonathan Anderso -but one which continued to blend fantasy with high fashion.
Here are some highlights of Saturday’s spring 2025 menswear shows:
Dries Van Noten’s final show
His departure marks the end of an era.
To the sound of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, Dries Van Noten took his final curtain call at a warehouse in northern Paris in front of an 8-meter-high disco ball, at the helm of a bedazzling silver runway that had just acted as the stage of his swan song – his 150th show.
Van Noten is one of the famed Antwerp Six’ designers, including Ann Demeulemeester, who all trained at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the early 80s, and had an important impact on global fashion.
His career, which has spanned five decades since his first menswear line in 1986, has been marked by a fusion of familiar and unfamiliar elements, creating a sense of surprise and poetry in his collections. He is revered across the fashion industry for his unique aesthetic.
Diane von Fürstenberg, Thom Browne, and Pierpaolo Piccioli, attended the event to celebrate his career.
The Saturday night collection gleamed. It was a varied display playing loosely on the theme of wrapping up or exposing. Known for his innovative use of fabrics and textures, Van Noten showcased plenty of disco-ready sheen and shimmer.
It was all about the fabrics. He employed semi-sheer crinkled polyamide resembling glass and “one-sided foils that shift, liquid-like, between silver and gold.”
As the 66-year-old takes his final bow, the fashion world reflects on the legacy of a designer who continually pushed boundaries, redefined elegance, and brought a distinctive Belgian touch to the global stage. (PTI)