Dries Van Noten is all about slow fashion.

Speaking at the WWD Apparel & Retail CEO Summit, the Belgian designer said he likes to remind young designers that it took him 10 years after graduating in 1982 to stage his first fashion show.

“And even then it was a men’s show, really small, and then the women’s show was even later. So take your time. That I think for every young designer, it’s important, because some people just start to run and then the problems are there,” he said in a conversation with WWD West Coast executive editor Booth Moore.

The 2023 recipient of WWD’s Designer of the Year award, Van Noten has on the contrary cultivated a slow and steady approach that has served him well at times of economic instability. “When somebody wants to grow really fast, it’s never good,” said the designer, who maintains a sprawling garden at his Antwerp home.

Now 65, Van Noten remained independent until 2018, when he joined forces with Puig. The Spanish beauty and fashion group acquired a majority stake in his brand and helped him launch new categories such as fragrance and color cosmetics.

“When we approached Puig, it was also because we understood in fact we were like a big small company and we wanted to grow, because standing still is not the right thing, and especially not for me,” Van Noten recalled.

“We needed strong shoulders for that, and that’s exactly what Puig gave us. They gave us really support to expand, to do new things like e-comm, expand our accessories business, open stores in China and things like this,” he added.

The partnership has not altered the essence of his Antwerp, Belgium-based brand, he said. 

“Like in every good marriage, I think there are good days, and sometimes less good days, but I think they really respected us, so they didn’t want to put the Puig stamp on our company,” he explained. “For me, it was very important also to find a partner who would allow us to stay in Antwerp, because Antwerp is really not only the place where we work, but it’s also our soul.”

Being outside the major fashion capitals allows Van Noten to work at his own speed. “In Antwerp, it’s enough to whisper, you don’t have to shout. I think living in a big city like New York, sometimes it’s kind of a struggle, and in that way, I would start to shout more, I think, than to whisper, and I prefer to whisper,” he said.

It took Van Noten four years to develop beauty, which launched last year with 10 gender-fluid fragrances and 30 lipsticks in refillable packaging.

“In both products, there is far too much already on the market. So there when we started, we said we can only do it when it makes sense, that we can bring colors for lipsticks in an intensity [that] is not yet on the market, so it was really a lot of work,” he said.

“But also in the perfume, I took all the noses through the garden to explain the mere fact that I want to have a new take on certain perfumes and certain smells. And also besides that, of course, everything had to be completely as sustainable as possible,” he added.

“I see the climate change everyday in the garden so it’s something which is, I think, on everybody’s mind or has to be on everybody’s mind. And of course, fashion is a big polluter so we have to consider that and really ask ourselves questions: What can we do? What can we do to improve?” he said.

Van Noten’s approach to collections swims against the tide of data, celebrity and drops.

A mix master of masculine and feminine, his instinct for color and print is unrivaled, as seen when he mashed up florals of different scales, crushed and pleated fabrics, georgette garlands, snaking ruffles and giant blooms to redefine flower power for spring 2023.

“I don’t design total silhouettes,” he explained. “First, I create kind of a general mood board of things with what I want to express with the collection. I do that together with my team. But then after that I really design garment by garment, accessory by accessory, that everything which we create has sense on its own and that also afterward, the person who buys these garments, in fact, can combine it in a lot of different ways.”

That means he’s not opposed to revisiting ideas. “Of course, I have certain things which I love which I fall back on quite regularly,” he confessed. “For me, the biggest compliment is always when people start to mix collections from different periods.”

For all that, Van Noten does not have a set method for working.

“When there is a system, it kills creativity, because you just start to repeat things. No, for me, it’s really that I have to surprise myself and also my team,” he explained. “I do this already for a very long time, so I don’t want to be bored and I think also the final customers don’t want to be bored by seeing again and again the same product, maybe in a different color.”

While many of his employees have been with him for decades, the oldest person on his women’s design team is 32.

“They are a very good sounding board for me because of course I’m 65 so I’m not the youngest anymore, but still sometimes I feel the youngest of the bunch. I still can shock them, I still can trigger them and I think that’s really my job also because I have to stimulate them,” he said.

Van Noten says he likes to question things, from world events to gender relations, and brings to the conversation the perspective of someone who went to his first fashion shows in 1977 and saw the emergence of French talents like Jean Paul Gaultier and Claude Montana, followed by Japanese designers in the ‘80s.

Then there is the unspoken fact that he was part of the group of six Belgian designers (including Ann Demeulemeester, Martin Margiela and Walter van Beirendonck) who in 1991 drove a van to Paris to show, and took the city by storm, becoming known as the “Antwerp Six.”

The third generation of his family to work in the apparel business, Van Noten grew up in his father’s fashion stores and has been expanding his own network of boutiques. The brand opened its first mainland China store in Shanghai and its first U.S. store in Los Angeles in 2020, followed by stores in Shenzhen and Chengdu in 2021 and 2022.

“I want to respect every city by creating a different store,” he said of his approach. “Like with collections, I don’t want a formula which you just apply in every store.”

That considered approach explains why Van Noten, a darling of retailers, has always resisted pressure to produce pre-collections.

“It’s really important to tell a full story with a fashion show,” he said. “I need a lot of time to create all those fabrics, to create all those shapes, and I just want to be happy with what I make or what I show to the public. So for me, two collections for men, two collections for women, that’s all I can do.”