Fashion seers have had a field day for the past year as the industry stalls after a post-pandemic boom. Change is in the air, not least at the creative helm of fashion’s top houses.
Dries Van Noten added to the speculative swirl when he announced he would step down from his brand last March. Now, the guessing game is over, at least at Dries: Julian Klausner — who has worked at the company since 2018, eventually becoming head of womenswear — will succeed Van Noten as creative director of the Puig-owned label. He’ll issue a lookbook for men’s in January, and make his runway debut during the women’s collections in March.
After Van Noten waved goodbye last June with a men’s show that was his own special blend of emotion, intelligence and extravagance, his studio designed the women’s collection shown in October, which is usually the stop-gap that precedes the announcement of a successor.
Van Noten’s departure posed a particular challenge, however. “Now it’s up to other people to use the principles that we’re standing for,” he said to me in June. “Colour, prints, embroidery skills, the craft, the menswear fabrics… there are enough people who can work on those things and let them grow into something else.” But the idea of Dries without Dries was scarcely less comprehensible to his fans than the notion that some “big name” designer might be parachuted in to assume the mantle.
Which is why Klausner’s promotion makes so much sense. Van Noten always said it was important for him to be surrounded by young people. “Sometimes I feel a bit that I’m a vampire,” he said. “I need them to feed me. They have to challenge me; they have to push me forward.” Given that Klausner was one of those young people, you could say his blood runs in DVN’s veins. “I always admired Dries for his ability to listen to the team, valuing their input,” he said via text message on Saturday. “I like to think I encouraged Dries to embrace bolder expressions.”
Something else that Van Noten valued about his young cohort was that they helped him assess his own past through new eyes. Klausner represents an empathetic connection between past and future. “The most important quality to convey is the balance between creativity and emotional connection,” he added. “While Dries can be cerebral and pragmatic, his work consistently seeks new beauty and provokes emotion. This creative and poetic dimension of the brand is where my heart truly lies.”
I’m sure there will be cynics who insist that the studio show in October, in which Klausner played a key role, was unpromisingly hesitant, but he clearly gets that Van Noten’s particular magic always lay in the heady hinterlands between spirit and flesh. It’s not necessarily a fragile legacy but it does require an acute sensitivity, and who knows that better than someone who has already been there, done that?
Which is sufficient to make me wonder about all the other treasures who are buried in studio teams at other fashion brands, especially those that seem set for upheaval. The thrall of the marquee name might seem like a safe bet, but I’m not sure that logic makes the most sense any longer. Drastic times require drastic measures — or at least a willingness to take a leap into the unknown. No risk, no reward. But what an irony if the reward is someone who is right under your nose!
As for Klausner, may his path to glory be a beacon for fashion — just as Dries’ was.
