Belgium fashion designer Dries Van Noten acknowledges the audience after presenting creations by Dries Van Noten for the Women Ready-to-wear Fall-Winter 2024/2025 collection as part of the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris on February 28, 2024. Picture: Julien De Rosa / AFP

The esteemed Belgian designer Dries Van Noten will step down as creative director of his fashion label this summer, he announced Tuesday. 

Van Noten, 65, is set to leave after the next Paris Fashion Week menswear show in June. 

Known for luxurious colours and avant garde styles, Van Noten began as part of the so-called Antwerp Six who trained at the city’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the 1980s. 

Other members included daring designers Walter Van Beirendonck and Ann Demeulemeester. 

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‘I want to shift my focus to all the things I never had time for Dries’

In his statement, Van Noten said his career had been “a dream come true”. 

“I want to shift my focus to all the things I never had time for. I’m sad, but at the same time, happy,” he said. 

Van Noten added that a replacement would be announced “in due time”, and his studio team will handle the next womenswear collection. 

DVN, as he is known, sold a majority stake in his label to Spanish conglomerate Puig in 2018, but had remained chairman of the board and creative director. 

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