“I decided not to make a big event of it. I just thought about going back to the essence of a show—models, lights, chairs.” This was Dries Van Noten talking a couple of days before his 100th show. Not a big event—who was he kidding? Back-to-Belgian basics the venue might have been, with its old-school chairs, but the Dries show was an epic international reunion of 54 models who have walked for him from 1993 onwards. As he put it, “They are women who stand for what we want to say.”
The show became a mesmerizing “name that face” competition for all those who’ve idolized the great runway and magazine supermodels of the ’90s and noughties. There were Nadja Auermann, Cecilia Chancellor, Emma Balfour, Guinevere van Seenus, Kirsten Owen, Trish Goff, Elise Crombez, Erika Wall, Esther de Jong, Alek Wek, Michele Hicks, Carolyn Murphy, Liya Kebede. On they went, generations still calmly killing it, eyes to the battalions of photographers as they proceeded into the lights yet again.
What they were wearing was a kind of retrospective, too—a back-catalogue of dozens of the Van Noten prints which made his reputation and have sustained it with his public ever since. Helpfully, he printed a limited-edition guide to the patterns for the audience to re-absorb. There they all were, dated: chintzy wallpaper, Spring 2000; Japanese kimono print, Fall 2013; paisley, Fall 2007; ikat, Spring 2010; English roses, Spring 1994; ’60s triangles, Fall 2001. It was an impressive feat of redoing and remixing to get them all onto the backs of these women in new ways.
Mixed in amongst the patterns were the plains—the wardrobe of tailoring, well-cut pantsuits and generous coats that have kept many a working woman’s head together down the decades. Now the jackets are calibrated to be larger and boxier, as is the fashion today—but these were never trendy things. They are clothes that last, and live in wardrobes for years. So this time, Dries demonstrated less how he wanted them to be worn, and more how these women see themselves. They might want to layer a navy overcoat over a camel jacket, like Mica Arganaraz; a fur coat over a beige blazer, a handknit and brown jumbo-cord pants, like Catherine McNeil: both terrific looks. “I just think people are looking for realness and authenticity now,” Van Noten said.
There was stole-action, shot silk, and velvet for evening; rich and gorgeous-looking metallics. Dries has always been the patron saint of those who refuse to get gussied-up for events. Kirsten Owen showed exactly how the alternative is done when she walked out in a midnight blue velvet jacket, a white shirt, an iridescent asymmetric sash, and jeans.
At the end, the company of Dries’s women friends gathered in his traditional tribal formation and advanced en masse along the runway towards the cameras. They made a powerful sight, emblematic of women’s dignity in general, of their individuality and professionalism in particular—and by the way, the cool of the ’90s still have it. Backstage, a party ensued, with much kissing and hugging and reminiscing. Van Noten, cheered and loved to death by all, said he wasn’t going to give any seasonal quotes to press. “I just want to have a drink with them!” he said, before diving into the crowd.
Something stuck in the mind from his earlier conversation, though. “We have to keep rethinking what’s important. I hate to stay still.” Standing back to look at the social register of the great “girls” of the past 20-something years, it was striking that Kebede, Wek, and Yasmin Warsame were the only women of color. Those were not good times for diversity in modeling. Now a new day’s dawning. Fashion in general must make that change.
