Dries Van Noten may have taken his last runway bow, but he’s still very much involved in the brand that bears his name. Since the start of the year, in fact, he’s overseen the interior design of no fewer than five new Dries Van Noten store projects, including one on Hanover Square in London that opened earlier this month and another on Mercer Street in New York that’s been welcoming customers for just about 48 hours. A sixth, in Milan, will come this fall. “It’s been busy,” he confirms on a Zoom call from his home in Antwerp.
The Mercer Street opening follows what Van Noten described as a “15-year” search for the right New York location. That means the hunt began long before Barneys, Van Noten’s original US stockist, closed its doors for good in 2020, but if it was a long time coming it was also worth the wait. “The location I think is really good,” he says. Indeed, his neighbors on the block are Alaia, Balenciaga, Marni, and Khaite. “And the volume makes it quite special. It’s narrow: just six meters wide, but it’s 30 meters deep, and it’s seven meters high. And the basement is also really high, which is where we’ll put menswear. An opportunity like this—we said, ‘okay, let’s go for it.’” |
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