Julian Klausner: “The world of Dries Van Noten is very elastic. I feel a huge sense of responsibility which I’m still learning to handle.”

Julian Klausner: “The world of Dries Van Noten is very elastic. I feel a huge sense of responsibility which I’m still learning to handle.”

Picture a child rummaging joyfully through a costume box at home, finding himself years later propelled into the nearly forty-year treasure chest that is the archive of Dries Van Noten. Julian Klausner took over the creative direction of the House in 2024 after six years working closely with Van Noten himself. The delicate task of carrying such a singular legacy while making it his own has been met with resounding critical enthusiasm. He is a member of the ASVOFF 2026 jury. © Sarah Piantadosi   Julian Klausner is a serious player. He takes the playing seriously, and the seriousness playfully. “This is what I used to do in my bedroom with friends or on a mannequin. It’s very similar but now with professional models, with a team of talented people who can make things happen. The sense of play is absolutely still very present.” He grasped early the power of clothing, through a biker jacket from the costume box he played with at home. “I remember this feeling of an extremely heavy leather jacket, how it can change your body language.” He studied at La Cambre, close to his hometown, then interned at Kenzo, where he first encountered the machinery of a luxury fashion House. “I learned about the commerciality of clothes and the wardrobe and production fittings. It was the reality of working in a fashion House and I was at peace with the fact that that might be it. But to arrive then at Maison Margiela with John Galliano, it was like all these hopes and fantasies that I had had as a teenager kind of all came rushing back.” He interned there for six months, went back to graduate, then returned to spend two and a half years learning his craft. “It was so opulent and so theatrical, seeing a corsage made with real shells that were all hand flocked or jewelry made from real fruit and vegetables, with olives that were dried on radiators and then beaded onto necklaces.” In a studio buzzing like a beehive, he absorbed it all. His graduate collection at La Cambre was already a statement. Inspired by showgirls at the end of a performance, it explored the tension between stage glamour and backstage intimacy. “I always loved costume, the stage, the idea of dressing up. And the tension between onstage and offstage.” The wig caps he had designed for that collection would reappear in his debut Fall-Winter 2025/2026 collection at Dries Van Noten, a quiet thread running from the student to the designer.   “Here, the process is incredibly rich and there is so much hands-on work on the actual development of the fabrics, the embroideries, the prints. We still work in a very artisanal way.”   Dries Van Noten was, for Klausner, a House long admired from a distance. “I was following the work of Dries, always. But it was a very discreet House, mysterious. I had never met anybody who worked here.” Then came a call out of the blue, and an invitation to travel from Paris to Antwerp to meet Van Noten and his partner Patrick Vangheluwe. “They looked at my portfolio in a lot of detail and I understood that I would work very closely with them. That’s what made it very attractive.” After his experience at Maison Margiela, the intimacy of the House came as a revelation. For six years, his role was to expand Van Noten’s world and nurture his inspiration, working hands-on across every detail of fabric, embroidery and print, putting everything together on paper. “Dries calls it a ping pong sometimes. It’s really a dialogue. He once told me that in the best collaborations, you don’t know who did what. And I truly believe in that.”   “I feel a huge sense of responsibility which I’m still learning to handle.”   When Van Noten took his final bow in June 2024, trading the runway for the Fondazione he would open in Venice in April 2026, Klausner, the one he had taken under his wing, was ready to fly solo. He was appointed creative director in December that same year. “I know firsthand how much effort and care Dries put in every detail of the brand. I try not to overthink what it represents and just try to be in the moment.” Around him, teams whose craftsmanship spans decades, every pattern meticulously preserved by the House since the 1990s. “The world of Dries is very elastic. There are many layers and directions. When I think I know a collection by heart, I still find a special printing technique or a very unexpected fabric or a particular sleeve construction.” In his office, alongside a bronze elephant belonging to Van Noten, Klausner brought a piece by his grandfather, his own personal history leaning gently against an institutional one. “I always perceived the brand as being very personal to Dries, so I try to put a lot of myself into it, because this personal aspect is one of the very codes of the House.” Since his debut collection, Klausner and his teams keep conceiving and crafting joyful, thoughtful and alive collections, season after season, to the delight of even the notoriously hard to please. “It is very reassuring and exciting. I always get a sense of relief for the teams. I ask a lot of them so when it sort of paid off, that is a big relief.”   “I truly believe in the power of clothes to tell a story.”   This year, Klausner will attend ASVOFF for the very first time. “I think it’s very unique what Diane is doing, giving a platform specifically to fashion film. I love storytelling in fashion and I truly believe in the power of clothes to tell a story. But when sound and image combine, then something really sparks.” Around him on the jury, familiar faces from the Dries Van Noten universe: Stephen Jones, who worked with the House on the tribute silhouette for Alber Elbaz; Debra Shaw, who walked Van Noten’s final show; Mister Pearl, whose work Klausner has closely followed. “These are all people I very much look forward to the chance of interacting with.”