Unable to travel abroad, Dries Van Noten decided to shine the spotlight on his hometown: Antwerp, which inspired him for his new collection.
He and his team thus traveled back and forth across the heart city of the Belgian designer, one of the original Antwerp Six, to take a multitude of pictures of the port city. Office buildings, industrially scenic crane landscapes, the Brabo fountain, the Grande Place d’Anvers, the Sainte-Anne tunnel, quaint outdoor cafés, trams in movement, famous monuments and scenes from everyday life. Some of these snapshots, alongside old maps and prints by Peter Paul, Rubens and Pieter Bruegel were printed on the clothing, either as full pictures or as collages. The use of these clichés was certainly not innocent. They were a real homage to the city, to its past by borrowing works from the great masters of Flemish painting, to its present with the photos taken on smartphones by Dries Van Noten and his team, and to its future since the collection is designed for post-pandemic life.
As for looks, the collection included a wide range of basics with naturally relaxed cuts, ranging from feather-light silk suits to streetwear sets, including silky or utilitarian shirts, airy knitwear, trench coats, shorts, raincoats, linen sets, jogging pants worn with loose jackets and shirts. As for the color palette, it was rich and varied with pastel tones, camouflage green, orange, blue, yellow, red, black, accompanied by graphic stripes or chevrons.