Recalibrating the codes of global menswear season after season since his 1986 debut, Dries Van Noten's is an aesthetic that defies imitation or categorisation. Instead, it is a voice and DNA that is singularly DVN.
For his AW18 menswear show, Van Noten embraced a sense of hybridity; deftly combining punk details with mid-western Americana, soviet track-suiting with militaria.
An ever-evolving riot of colour and print, Dries caused a stir among the fashion press this season by stating without compromise his unwillingness to discuss the show with journalists before or after - harking back to a pre-Insta era where commentaries on fashion shows were born from nothing more than the show notes and the experience itself. This could be Van Noten's contribution to the ongoing stand-off between designers and the rest of the industry, in reaction to the crippling speed at which labels are expected to produce and deliver new styles driven by the newfound immediacy of internet culture.
Presented in a monolithic expanse of warehouse in Paris' Canal Saint-Martin district, check out the entire collection in the video above.
