Dries van Noten Quotations

Coincidence is important, the convergence of different ideas.

Various different people have inspired me throughout my career. From Francis Bacon to Vassareli, Coco Chanel to Christian Dior, Cecil Beaton, musicians, architects... the list is endless.

Fashion shows are really my way of communication.

For me, it's really like, okay, if you go far with the unexpected materials and unexpected proportions or volumes, then keep the colors quite simple and straightforward for men.

I'm part of the fashion system, but I don't want to follow all the rules. I don't want to be contrarian - I just want to do my own things, which are most honest and correct to do.

When I have to do something fast, I wear the most unflattering rubber pants over my pants and a big easy sweater. I can get on my knees in the garden in whatever condition, and when I'm done, I can take it off, get in the car, and drive to the office. It's the most practical thing.

When I get very stressed, I make jam. I like things that produce a quick result, because fashion has such a long lead time. With jam, you start, and two-three hours later, you have 36 little pots, all full.

I like to choose my own way forward. I really do want to create something that I personally like a lot.

Sometimes, to stimulate your imagination you have to be careful you don't have too much information. You can Google something, and it's in your face, pow! You don't have time to dream any more about it.

All my collections are very personal. It's also because I'm so involved in making the collections.

I make clothes people can wear; I don't make art.

I'm known for color and prints and embroideries.

I like it when you have something happening by coincidence. Just something in a book is enough. But I prefer a fragment of an image so you are far more free to bring in elements of your own.

When we were studying at the Royal Antwerp Academy, we were taught to seek inspiration from everyone, everything and everywhere. My parents and grandparents were also a great inspiration for me at a very young age.

In the design process, there's a need to be culturally comprehensive.

My childhood was very, very, very, very traditional.

I'm a very big fan of winter-flowering shrubs and bulbs. You have the smell, you have the color - it's really like a present from God when something like that is in flower in the middle of the snow.

I love the journeys of research and discovery their development takes me on. I see prints as less 'decorative' than many might, and more fundamental to a garment's core.

People get this very romantic vision of a fashion designer who in one night makes 25 sketches and in the morning throws them on the table and there are a lot of women in white aprons with the pins on the lapel and they start to grab the sketches and... It's not like that.

For me personally, there's too much fashion around in this world.

I prefer ugly things. I prefer things which are surprising.

I don't design for myself. I design something keeping in mind that it has to please a lot of women.

To create a collection, you need a narrative - an explanation to tell the team.

I have my own office, and I'm there during the evenings and weekends. But during the week, I'm sitting in the middle of my studio, talking with everybody, deciding together every detail, every pallette, every yarn, every colour.

I was a kid at the end of the 1960s and in the early 1970s, so a lot of things changed. You had pop music coming up, with David Bowie, you had new television programmes and all these things. I was fascinated.

I have a responsibility to the people who work for me, the manufacturers I work with. There is no point to clothes that don't sell.

One of the big luxuries of being in Antwerp is that I can easily walk in the city. In Paris and New York, I am more recognized.

I think by my father owning a store, I was definitely aware of the commercial aspect of selling clothes. His shop was a place I enjoyed spending time in as a boy, so I learned things almost by osmosis at times, by literally just being around all the action and not really despite myself.

The first and most important thing for me is that people feel how beautiful fashion can be and that it is not just a case of well-made and expensive clothes. Fashion is so rich and it is such an amazing occupation because we can draw on so many different sources of inspiration - just as a hummingbird feeds on a multitude of flowers.

Enjoy your life, fashion is not that important.

There are boys and girls, there is night and day, but above all there is love.

Our role is to dream and inspire rather than collude in impacting the reality.

A few years ago, maybe it was more strange to be outside of the centers of fashion. Now, with the Internet and traveling that you can do, I think I'm more central than some people in Paris.

For me, restrictions are not always negative. Restrictions can push creativity. I like restrictions.

I try to be as independent as possible.

I'm a fashion designer, not a shoe designer. I like to design clothes.

I'm really hands-on. My team brings in elements, but, every season, it's kind of a personal struggle to find the balance and to see how far I want to push the elements.

I prefer to see a good exhibit sponsored by a brand than a bad exhibit due to lack of funds.

Clothes is just something you put on to cover yourself... fashion is a way to communicate.