Behind the curtain
I present my first collection as Creative Director of Dries Van Noten with honour and excitement. Taking place at the Palais Garnier, the collection was created with the venue in mind – the stories these walls might tell and the energy of another time that fills the air.
I first fell in love with clothes as a child through my family’s costume box. Throwing things together, feeling the textures and sensations that wearing clothes can ignite. A tight belt, a heavy coat, or a scarf wrapped a certain way could create a character crafted with affection, letting my imagination run wild.
Here, I imagined women passing through the opera, grabbing fabrics and objects, tying them with a shoelace while on a quest to find the answer to an unknown question. Behind the curtain, where creation and practice happen.
That raw, tactile discovery remains at the core of how I see fashion today. This collection is a celebration of that instinct: of transformation, of personal ritual, of the quiet yet powerful dialogue between past and future, which is at the heart of Dries Van Noten.
Julian Klausner
Creative Director Julian Klausner
Stylist Katie Burnett
Photography Carlijn Jacobs
Hair Olivier Schawalder
Make-up Inge Grognard
Casting DM Casting
Dear Shaded Viewers,
Julian Klausner’s debut for Dries Van Noten’s fall/winter collection is cinematic in ambition, poetic in execution—a double exposure of heritage and future that unfolds on the marbled stage of Paris’s Opéra Garnier. At first glance, the show resonates with a hush, shadows falling across the velvet and silk, brooding yet touched by the flicker of possibility. But beneath this operatic quiet, Klausner’s vision sings with urgency: garments as dialogue, silhouettes sculpted to reflect both the house’s storied soul and the rawness of new beginnings.
From the opening, monochrome coats sweep past, their enlarged collars whip-stitched like mementos of backstage invention—a conscious wink to the atelier’s obsessive pursuit of craft. Julian’s palette travels from black and moody greys, slowly blossoming into a riot of burnt orange, violet, moss, and carmine, each hue layered as a memory reclaimed from the archives and pressed to the chest of now. If Dries was the master of the feverish print, Klausner’s prints are quieter, more restrained—textures and patterns in dialogue rather than cacophony.
Yet Julian’s voice is distinct, lending the collection a touch of decadent modern romanticism. The models, draped in structured coats, capes, and languorous silk blouses, seem to roam between the centuries, urban scoundrels styled with raw-rope belts and loose cuffs—a Burroughs vision set loose in the foggy lanes of Flanders. Embroidered linings in mauve, pastel silk, and abstract prints peek out as small provocations, reminding all that beneath the restraint remains Dries’s signature exuberance. The collection’s energy feels both cinematic and intimate—looks that could exist outside of time, illuminated by fading streetlights, ready to slip into the world’s next story.
Klausner’s approach honors transition—not erasure. His respect for legacy is evident; he’s not posturing as a radical, but composing a powerful dialogue between past and future. Reviewers see an inheritance fulfilled, not simply repeated—the tactile, transformative joy of dressing is still at the center, but now shaded by uncertainty, tension, and artistic affirmation. Klausner’s debut acknowledges the weight of the task and answers with restraint: a promise to unfurl his vision slowly, clue by clue, shadow by shadow.
Under the gilded ceilings of the Opéra, Julian Klausner’s Dries Van Noten feels like a story screened in flickers—elegant, eccentric, and slightly haunted. It is a grand opera, yes, but also the start of a whispered revolution. The legacy glows, undimmed, even as a new hand turns up the contrast.
There is palpable impatience for Julian Klausner’s next Dries Van Noten collection, set to debut September 30th—an anticipation sharpened by the compelling promise of his poetic first act at the Palais Garnier. Klausner’s inaugural show was not just a collection, but the opening stanza of a dialogue that feels unfinished, electric with potential. The September runway already feels like the next necessary chapter in an unfolding story; it’s hard not to count the days, waiting to see how this whisper of renewal will evolve when the curtain rises once again.
Later,
Diane
