Dries Van Noten announced his retirement in March 2024. In June of the same year, Dries Van Noten held his 129th show, ending a 38-year career.
Dries Van Noten thought about what the finale should be for this show. The answer she arrived at was not simply nostalgia, but an aggressive stance that evoked a sense of the future.
Sumi-nagashi is a new technique that is suitable for this attack. Sumi-nagashi is a traditional Japanese technique of retaining the momentary appearance of ink dripping into water on Japanese paper or silk. Its origin is said to date back to the 9th century.
It was dyed in a workshop in Kyoto that still remains today.
The contrast between the sheer organza layers and the glossy sheer was also apparent, but the pants with the botanical pattern expressed in black ink was certainly a challenging experiment, yet it did not lose a bit of Dries Van Noten's style.
The flowers that Dries Van Noten loved so much are fleeting. But they are also beautiful when they fall. She was a designer who lived like a flower.
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This is a digital print of a flower drawn in sumi-nagashi on silk.
Photo_Kazuma Yamano
Text_Kei Takegawa
