Irina
Are you curious how Dries Van Noten’s home looks like? Look no further as we’ve got you covered!
When you hear someone say: Dries Van Noten you think about grace, excellence and precise attention to details. In a world of fashion globalization, Dries Van Noten is one of the most frugal figures in fashion. For more than 25 years he kept his sensitivity, his true feelings and instincts.
Reiner Holzemer – whose past films include portraits of artists and photographers such as David Lynch and Juergen Teller – touches down and achieves to convince Dries to let his privacy be discovered after several years of persistent attempts. Directed by Reiner, the new Netflix documentary is where the Belgian designer gives rare access to his home and work life.
The documentary presents Dries’s activity over the course of a year, the makings of four collections, from his studio in Antwerp to backstage at his fashion shows in Paris. In doing so, it offers a glimpse into the world of “one of fashion’s most cerebral designers”, as The New York Times has described him.
In the documentary, the home of Dries Van Noten and his life partner, Patrick Vangheluwe and their dog, Harry definitely can not get unnoticed. Our attention being especially drawn to the Neoclassical house near the city of Antwerp, in Lier.
Built in 1840, the extraordinary home of Dries Van Noten was decorated by him with assistance from interior designer Gert Voorjans – a long time collaborator, known to have worked on the Van Noten stores.
The home is filled with antiques and patterned textiles, as it is a well known fact that Dries and his life partner, Patrick, collect antiques from different markets from Brussels or Paris.
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By walking around the property, you can find enchanting architectural treasures everywhere, like the commanding terra-cotta Tritons, which once adorned a 19th-century Viennese bank and now guard the orangery, Mantero silk brocade that dresses the dining-room table, Belgian expressionist Léon de Smet’s Nude and Bouquet (1922) greeting visitors in the entryway or a darling restored gazebo in the garden.
The Gardens of Dries’s Eden
Landscape architect Erik Dhont designed the 55-acre park and gorgeous, paradise-like gardens that fill the house with beautiful blooms. Another passion of Dries and Patrick being gardening at its most artistic way.
“In fashion we try to control everything, especially at shows, where it’s all about creating a moment. But you can’t control a garden, you must obey it. If it rains for a week and suddenly the sun comes out, you go home and jump on the lawn mower, even if it’s the same day you have an important fitting. It’s a little like having children: It forces you to reorganize your life”– Dries Van Noten for Town & Country magazine
Following the estate’s original plantings, the garden is enhanced to suggest a playfully overgrown woodland that is beautifully matched both by the lake and by the mansion. Imagine peonies, avens, and geraniums in vivid colors, lupines, poppies, and golden hop in full bloom, creeping helichrysum spills from enormous vases, and climbing vines of Blossomtime and Aloha roses delicate arches. Not to mention the zigzag yew hedge designed by Erik Dhont that leads to the Swiss Cottage guesthouse.
“…we’re lucky, because our garden is big enough to divide into sections. There is a woodland, rose and dahlia gardens, the hedges, and we have 50 different types of hydrangea. Everything blooms at different times of year, and we spend time out there even in the coldest months. Around Christmas the first witch hazel flowers appear, cyclamen sometime in January, and then, of course, rhododendron in the month of May. What makes me happiest is that when we come back from a crazy day at the office we can go to the vegetable garden, pick a few things, and prepare a simple salad. That is the moment when I feel the most rich.” – Dries Van Noten for Town & Country magazine
Dries Van Noten is well known for being a veteran of mastering print, pattern and texture. In the early ‘80s he arose from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts as part of a group of designers including Walter van Beirendonck and Ann Demeulemeester, named Antwerp Six. Since launching his namesake label in 1986, he has become widely respected as a designer who has forged his own path. See more HERE.
In March 2018 Dries celebrated his 100th show, in his own exquisite way, bringing on the runway stars like Julia Nobis and Catherine McNeil, and many other of his perennial muses: Alek Wek, Guinevere van Seenus, Carolyn Murphy, Tasha Tilberg, and Esther de Jong.
Sources: vogue.com, port-magazine.com, elledecor.com, townandcountrymag.com
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