The first Dries Van Noten piece Julian Klausner recalls ever acquiring was, he said, “a pair of khaki chino cotton pants for summer, and I still wear them. It was a spontaneous purchase made when I went into the store in Antwerp.” The arrival in his life of those pants just predated his arrival at this house, which he joined as a womenswear designer from Maison Margiela back in 2018. Following the founder’s retirement from the front line of creative directorship last year, Klausner was appointed his successor.
Klausner held his menswear show debut today in a naturally lit garage space (very Dries) that was densely populated with hard-core brand fans: Menswear, remember, was where Van Noten started back in 1986, seven years before women’s. The new man came out after 62 looks wearing a white shirt and khaki chinos (possibly that first purchase) as the last bars of his Lou Reed outtakes soundtrack faded from the PA. While the applause was doubtless boosted by staffers and fans, it also justifiably carried that spontaneous semi-electric and special frequency only generated by genuine happy surprise; this was, in many ways, an excellent first menswear showing for Klausner.
Van Noten’s clothes evoke an emotional weather pattern of wistful reverie prone to the occasional downpour of joy or gale of angoisse. It is a climate no Dries lover particularly wants to see change, and yet Klausner needs to define his own take on that brand atmosphere. The designer approached this conundrum from his womenswear safe place; his opening and closing looks were opera coats in a gray check poly wool and black double duchesse, respectively, with angled darting at the full-sleeve elbows and covered buttons. This was, in part, a backward hat tip to his womenswear debut back in March. Color-drenched sarong-pareos were regular punctuation marks, as were tailored sleeveless so-called evening tops: feminine tunics with covered-button cinch straps at the waist and waisted jersey tank tops. These were not especially Dries-y in this context, but they did function as a point of connection between Klausner and his assumption of authorship here today.
Klausner began interweaving multiple strands and stories, using narrative devices inherent to the house but delivering them in a manner that was as distinct as it was respectful. An embroidered sequined and beaded tank top was layered under a jersey and worn over a matching short. Colored cummerbunds were worn above cropped jersey pants, a thoughtfully playful collision of casual and formal. A full-sleeve khaki gabardine version of the opera coat was hemmed in a 10-inch band of Klausner’s embroidered and colorful camo.
It sounds a false equivalence to say that stripes are exciting, but Klausner delivered three strikes of stripe mastery in this collection. The first was a series of pieces whose stripes were patches of upcycled deadstock jacquard left over from previous DVN productions. Then there was a less worked but equally impactful interaction of striped fabrics, particularly on a rolled-cuff rowing-stripe soft blazer in blue-gray and red and a shirt of red double stripes on black. Finally there was a Kentucky Derby’s worth of jockey-inspired outfits, mostly shorts and round-collar tunic shirts, in jewel-toned silky satins.
And inevitably there were blooms: These included some sumptuous screen-print cloque jacquards, including a super-Dries-y overcoat in fuchsia on forest green floral. No less striking but more subtle was the interaction of drape, texture, and tone in a look topped by a lavender coat and filled with a draped dark floral blouse top, a titanium cummerbund, and silky olive pants. There were also two bicolor floral looks in what Klausner said, I think, was a coated linen; the beach party’s worth of often floral-print pareos, a garment the founder also used in menswear shows, expanded today’s bouquet.
Klausner said he’d been inspired by a 1993 image of Nirvana wearing Dries, looking blissed out. The collection and soundtrack were meant to evoke a sort of morning-after-the-night-before state of dishevelment: formality exhausted by the friction of fun. Klausner was interesting on another form of friction relevant to his role, namely that sometimes irreconcilable divide between the elaboration of the styled garment and the more reality-based appeal of the commercial offer. He said: “Dries was able to be quite often daring but still always quite believable and accessible. And it’s really important for me that it stays quite accessible.”
