Dries Van Noten on Opening a Store During a Pandemic

The Business of Fashion Podcast

The Business of Fashion

Fashion & Beauty, Business, Arts

4.6 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 29 October 2020

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

BoF Editor-at-Large Tim Blanks speaks with the Belgian designer about his new community-centred art hub and why the clothing store could do with a makeover. LONDON, United Kingdom — It’s been just over two weeks since Dries Van Noten opened his latest store in downtown Los Angeles — a 8,500-square-foot, multi-storey building intended as a hub for art, fashion, music and community. In the latest episode of the BoF Podcast, the Belgian designer speaks with BoF Editor-at-Large Tim Blanks about the inspiration behind his new brick-and-mortar venture and his plans for future fashion weeks.

It may seem counterintuitive to debut a new store during a pandemic, when shops are open one day and forced to close the next, but Van Noten’s latest venture is an attempt to reimagine what brick and mortar can be. “Stores become very static. I wanted to have more of a youth club, where people can just come in… and do things,” he said. He recently had four local artists come in and repaint the walls in an homage to street art.
One of the rooms in Van Noten’s store serves as an archive of unsold garments from the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. It was inspired by the idea to slow down the fashion industry. “We have a room for men and a room for women where you have a selection of pieces from old collections.”
When looking to the future, Van Noten reflects on the possibility of combining fashion shows with alternative ways to present collections — like fashion films or lookbooks. “By the time we go back to fashion shows, perhaps the fashion shows will be changed,” Van Noten said. “It felt not right to see — in the times we are in — a fashion show.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I didn't want to make up that store like traditional fashion marble palace.
0:07.0	I just wanted to have more like a place where you love to go to, maybe sometimes to buy clothes,
0:12.0	and otherwise also to discover things, art, music, food, all of different things.
0:17.0	I've felt that you with the store and with the forum that you've created, that you have a mission.
0:23.6	You seem to be a man with a new sense of mission.
0:27.6	Well, I think you can do two things when you're in a situation like everybody was in lockdown.
0:31.6	Or you can sit quietly in a corner and you're miserable.
0:34.6	Or you can say like, okay, what can we do? And I'm more a person
0:39.0	of doing things, trying to resolve problems. Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the
0:48.2	Business of Fashion. And welcome to the BOF podcast. This week, we have a very special conversation
0:53.5	with Juis van Nton, who talks to
0:55.7	Bof's editor at large Tim Blanks about his new store in downtown Los Angeles, as well as his
1:01.0	thoughts about the future of fashion shows. This past season, Dries did something he's never done
1:06.2	before, and he now sees the possibility of combining fashion shows with alternative ways to present collections.
1:13.3	Here's Dries Van Notton inside fashion.
1:21.6	Welcome to BOWF Live. Today's guest is Dries Van Noten, who needs absolutely no introduction.
1:28.6	And Dries and I have been talking for so many years now has always been to me one of the most,
1:36.3	would always be one of the most interesting conversations I could have.
1:39.3	And we've been having them during the whole lockdown thing.
1:42.3	And now it looks, it looks like we're
1:44.7	cresting on a second wave in both the UK and in Belgium. So our optimism is about to be challenged
1:51.5	once again. But in the last few weeks, Dries made a huge and gorgeous investment in the future
	...

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