Dries Van Noten to Debut Magnificence Line
Blooms from Van Noten’s 55-acre floral oasis, said to have helped inform the collections 10 gender fluid scents. Photographed by Francois Halard, Vogue.
A designer beloved for fashion that marries beauty and brains, Van Noten, is known for a love of juxtaposition. He is said to enjoy the idea of combining unlikely things “beauty with something strange beside it,” which, according to Van Noten, is at the core of his debut beauty collection.
The collection will feature a line of 10 gender-fluid eau de parfums and 30 sheer, matte and satin-finish lipsticks will be available, created in collaboration with Puig, the Spanish beauty and fashion conglomerate.
Raving Rose, a heady scent combining the titular bloom with pink and black pepper that’s inspired by the French tradition of sprinkling pepper on strawberries, is an early favorite. It’s modern, unexpected, and unlike the many, many other rose perfumes that have been released before.
For most designers, perfume and cosmetics are a right of passage. No time is wasted getting into the businesses. But Van Noten, for over three decades, has been one of fashion’s rare independent operators who made his name not on licenses, but on clothes.
The 63-year-old is stepping into the game with experience unlike his competitors. “I said I wanted a rose perfume that is kind of a punch,” “Not a sweet, beautiful, feminine thing. It had to be something that men could easily wear. That was kind of the symbol of how we started to work,” Van Noten expressed.
He says of his fragrance lineup, which also includes Neon Garden, one of the scents the designer himself has taken to wearing, that pairs the freshness of mint with powdery iris, and Jardin de l’Orangerie, which blends traditional orange blossom with sandalwood for a grounded, earthy effect. What Van Noten didn’t want was “easy going” perfumes. “I think there’s already so much out there in the market. The idea was that every perfume really tells a story – in my fashion, I’m also a storyteller.”
The brand wants to feature refillable bottles that push the boundaries of creativity and sustainability. Each of the handcrafted containers in the new collection is a study in contrasts, translating the fragrances’ dualities into three-dimensional form.
Like the perfumes, the lipsticks are housed in collectible and refillable cases in clashing top and bottom prints—malachite and snake, fluorescent yellow and animalia—striking enough to make lipstick wearers out of lip-balm types, and risk-takers out of red- or nothing classicists.
Dries Van Noten Beauty launches tomorrow, (March 2) on driesvannoten.com
