My Spiritual Experience At Dries Van Noten
A reawakening at Dries Van Noten; A Reflection On Personal Style + Eveningwear from Ulla Johnson.
I read once, that there is a spiritual experience that happens to you when you are surrounded by Dries Van Noten.
Specifically quoting from fashion’s it girl, Amanda Murray, the British American stylist and brand advisor to so many of the creative directors and designers we know and love.
She’s incredibly chic, she marches to the beat of her own drum. And she loves Dries Van Noten probably more than me, which is how I discovered her on pinterest, and then instagram.
Naturally, we’d be “friends in my head” though we’ve never met.
And even more naturally- this quote from her on her first experience with Dries has lingered in my brain for quite some time.
If you are new to Lush Life, you know I proudly write on fashion (style, more specifically), and I indulge my brain cells in to attempting to answer the larger question of “what is luxury”?
Who gets to define it?
Is it in fact, a product you buy?
Is a product that you can buy but only if invited?
Is it an experience or experiential?
Does it expire- like say a candle or a text message that disappears after it’s been opened?
I’ve spent the last year sorting through my thoughts, my fashion archive and digging up and shuffling memories, good and bad, on the quest to find the answer.
There’s a spiritual experience that happens to you when you come across design that feels synonymous with your spirit.
When design feels like a living embodiment of you, where you don’t need translation.
In fact, it’s quite literally understood without speaking.
I am often an outlier, and I’ve come to accept that my disposition and choice in clothing accurately reflects that.
I don’t follow most trends, and often feel 20 minutes late to whatever the world is crazing over.
I can’t tell you the names of famous basketball players or reality television stars, or even the lyrics to whoever is the reigning pop star of the generation.
I have no idea who performed at Coachella and I often don’t know what brands are the designers in vogue this year.
Terrible, I know, as a self titled stylist.
Absolutely terrible.
My worldview is intentionally but more often unintentionally curated to a level most people wouldn’t immediately understand.
I come on to instagram to post, and then immediately delete the app soon after.
I exclusively listen to jazz and classical music- often hearing pop music at my gym or from my personal trainer’s playlist.
My fashion styling is bold, but modest- architecturally focused and often my outfits only make sense to no one except me.
Of course I hear things.
I learned Cassie testified at Diddy’s trial by court subpoena.
But i have no idea what she said- and from the sounds of it, I probably would not want to know. I hate that the pain of a woman being groomed into an abusive relationship is playing out across televisions and kitchen table dinner conversation across the world.
I also appreciate her bravery, to tell the story of her survival to a global audience of prying eyes and critique. I hope her pain is vindicated.
But nevertheless, I don’t know the details.
I often feel like I could stand a dose of being clued in.
But i’ve had my fair share and many years of knowing too much, seeing too much. I came out of the Tenderloin, and only a couple of girls from my era of Polk & Post remain, alive. Everyone else has been unalived.
So naturally, i quite like my world now.
Give me jazz records and busy nothings any day of the week please.
When I’m not burying my hand in the sand, I watch and study and meditate on the runway shows of the past, with Dries Van Noten being the focal point of my deep internet searches.
Dries Van Noten made me fall back in love with fashion- and specifically an experience of being inspired by fashion as an art form, as a representation of possibility.
A celebration of both maximalist and vibrant prints and pattern play, with minimalist silhouettes- the yin and yang.
The delicate art of balance.
Pairings seemingly chaotic and contrasting prints and tones together to form outfits that feel ethereal, but also a conversation.
Curated Chaos- in the most beautiful form.
Of course I have my favorites.
Fall 2003 collection to comes to mind. It felt like he was settling in as a designer and found his voice and perspective truly take shape.
Spring 2008, Spring 2010, Fall 2011 and Spring 2015 are the runways shows that hand down, are my favorites- references I hawk back to often- each time I notice something different.
A different pattern play, how lipstick or makeup stylings add the “icing” to the vibe and ambiance of an effort.
The curation between consciousness and effortlessly not trying. Considered, but carefree.
Relaxed, effervescent pieces draped and styled in ways sometimes as of one dressed in the dark.
Daring and alluring too. I could go on.
The designer that ties in my falling back in love with fashion many years ago, as you might know, is Alessandro Michele’s Spring 2016 show- his third collection as Creative Director at GUCCI.
I didn’t know you could look like that, dress like that.
Flamboyant, yet somehow demure. Opulent yet an air of casual sophistication. The “Granny” celebrated. The introverted girl draped in bold fashion. A radical concept.
These moments are forever ingrained in my brain, and have often been the collated screenshots I am mindlessly scrolling on long flights when we’ve reached a wifi dead zone.
The genius of a designer to portray and tell stories in this way. I am still in awe, all these years later.
I thought I had the spiritual experiencing rewatching these runway shows on my ancient Macbook. Years prior, I thought the spiritual experience for me was studying the silhouettes and pattern play and working to recreate my own versions through fast fashion finds- and then eventually finding home and solace in the designs of contemporary designers I now know and love and live in, like BAACAL, Ulla Johnson, ALC, Dima Ayad, and the like.
While in Los Angeles to co-host BAACAL’s first sample sale and Sip + Shop (a coming of age moment for me)- I had some time in between obligations and catch up with my LA based friends.
I decided to explore my usual go to: Melrose Place and the shops on Melrose.
If you know me, shopping in the mall gives me a great deal of anxiety- and I’m not in the know on the go-to vintage shops or your Dover Street Market equivalent- I’m also navigating being significantly thinner, but not thin- most stores still do not have my size in store, and I’m a size 12 american/size 14/16 in European sizes.
I’m caught in between two worlds- I am now considered too small for the plus size brands I’ve loved and adored all these years, and too large for the designers I’ve studied for decades now. A complicated, double edge sword.
Let me stop rambling.
I decided this time, I wasn’t going to peruse The Real Real and stumble into a candle shop. I wanted an experience. Inspiration.
I needed to be reinvigorated, a phoenix rising from the flames.
I needed a feast for the eyes.
And i learned Dries Van Noten opened its Los Angeles showroom and store last year.
I was not prepared for the spiritual experience that came along with it.
I nearly cried. (I cried days later, when the items fit me, for the first time ever).
A courtyard garden entrance led me to the first room- the archive room
- the walls featuring an endless collage of past promotional campaigns, runway shows, polaroid test shoot photos and inspirations behind specific collections.
The racks, perfectly spaced archival pieces (all in sizes under FR 36 -_-).
I finally could touch and feel many of the pieces I’d been staring at- and honestly, nothing compares to the experience of seeing and feeling these pieces in person, in your hands.
Trying them on, seeing and feeling how they move and drape.
If i thought I experienced heavana from rewatching grainy camcorder uploads on a late night on youtube- you could imagine the experience I had being surrounded by these works of art on hangers.
You know how you’ll go into a store and you’ll see something and think “it doesn’t have hanger appeal, but it’s beautiful when you put it on”.
This was the first time I was convinced I can’t go back to that- I need the hanger appeal in my life, more often than not.
The pieces sung from the hanger- and were easy to imagine myself in them.
It doesn’t hurt that I’ve already imagined myself in them for hours and hours and years and years and years but alas, you get the point.
From the archive room, I went to browse the men’s wear section- where I’ll often go to actually try on the pieces that scream to me from the menswear collections of the past- and I eased into Women’s Ready To Wear from the current season, trying on the handbags I’ve swooned over for the past few years.
The ready to wear as usual, was mesmerizing but this was nothing like the small corner at Saks Fifth Avenue In Houston or San Francisco’s Neiman Marcus racks dedicated to Dries Van Noten. This was beyond my imagination.
I can’t begin to tell you how inspired the experience made me feel. I felt affirmed, and felt reminded of possibility.
I felt reinvigorated.
Ready to return home a new woman with a renewed sense of self and an inflated self esteem.
I realized in leaving the store, after purchasing my niche orange satin lipstick, (and a bar soap!), that what I had was a spiritual enlightenment- a conversation with clothing- one I don’t think I’d had before.
In true Aria curatorial fashion, I also stopped into the showroom for another designer I adore: Ulla Johnson.
I’m fortunate that I have a few pieces from Ulla that I treasure: I love her perspective, and her cadence to women’s bodies.
I’ll tell you more another time, and another day. I fell into trouble both in Dries Van Noten AND Ulla Johnson.
It was incredibly foolish of me, considering my obligations as present. But it was the steam I needed to keep going.
Life Update: I can now fit Dries.
Ya’ll aint ready.
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