Dries Van Noten retired from the runway Saturday night in Paris. He had vowed that his swan song wouldn't be a retrospective, and indeed he showed a newsy men’s collection for spring 2025, roughly 38 years after starting out After standing and cheering for as long as Van Noten lingered on the catwalk, which is not very long, guests poured into the backstage melee to discover an ebullient scene.

The Dries Van Noten women’s spring 2025 collection, to be presented in Paris this fall, will be done by the studio team and it is understood the founder will not play a role in the selection of his successor or successors.

Standing not far from his partner Patrick Vangheluwe, who is creative director at the company and who is also retiring, Van Noten told the scrum they would first spend a week or so at their holiday home in Italy.