A Day In the Life of Dries Van Noten

6:30 A.M. My partner, Patrick, and I live in an old house in Belgium that was built in 1840, and is out in the countryside between Antwerp and Brussels. We moved there about 20 years ago because we were looking for a house with a slightly bigger garden than the one where we were living at the time. Patrick and I collect antiques, which we have around our home. Well, technically we don't collect—we buy things we like, things that just speak to us. On Saturdays, we like to go to Brussels and search the markets, and we often buy pieces in Paris. We also use a lot of the antiques we find in our stores. In fact, the last thing I bought for myself, an artwork by André Bogaert, ended up in our new store in Hong Kong. We have countless pieces in our home, though—it's a big house and it's quite full. I collect objects I fall in love with more than antiques per se. Value is not a criteria that attracts me to something.

7:00 A.M. The house has very big windows because it was built as a summer home, so it's not the most practical house. When we wake up depends on the seasons; in the summer we get out of bed quite early. Of course, when the weather is nice and the dog is beside your bed and wants to have a walk, you want to get out of bed. We have an eight-year-old Airedale terrier named Harry who sleeps in our bedroom.

7:30 A.M. My morning routine varies by how much time I have. In the winter I like to take baths, but in the summer I prefer a good shower with some soap and then maybe some moisturizer afterward. I use D.R. Harris and Geo. F. Trumper products, which we also stock at our shops in Paris and Antwerp. For breakfast, I usually have a slice of bread with some homemade jam made from fruit from the garden; the type of jam depends on what particular fruit is being harvested. I learned how to make it from my mother. She always said, "You have to use everything the garden gives you," so when we moved into this house and grew the big garden, I started to make jam. I make it in big batches and give jars away to family and friends. We have a large garden with different sections: There's a rose garden, a dahlia garden, a peony garden. We have quite a lot of flowers—in all modesty, the number of varieties we have is too many to count!

Dries Van Noten, Fall 2016

8:30 A.M. Most of the time Patrick and I commute into Antwerp together, which takes about 40 minutes. I like to listen to Studio Brussel, a pop radio station in Belgium, in the car. They play a big variety of new music, which helps when I have to decide music for the fashion shows. If I hear something I like, I quickly Shazam it. When the weather is really nice, I ride my electric bike, and that will take about 55 minutes to get to the office. When you go in by normal bike, you are so tired and a bit sweaty when you get to work. The electric bike is good because you still have to push the pedals, but it's faster and more pleasant to ride.

9:30 A.M. The first thing I do when I get in is make myself a coffee, then I walk around the fourth floor, which is where our studio is. I like to check in on what needs to be done so I can plan my day. I really love when we're at the starting point of the collection and putting together colors and experimenting with fabrics. That's always the most fun part. Most days we have lots of meetings about styles and fabrics, plus two hours of fittings, where we see the pattern makers and what they're working on. My collection for Fall 2016 was inspired by the lustrous lives of the Marchesa Casati and Gabriele D'Annunzio, two renowned Italian opulent eccentrics who shared a passionate love affair. I sought a clash of styles, an impassioned embracing of aesthetics, and a purely idiosyncratic exuberance. This led me to a fusing of genders, the extravagance of materials, as well as the changing in context of materials: men's suiting for women, faux fur with silk jacquard, pearls strung as gilets.

12:00 P.M. We have a cook in the office who makes lunch for us. It's very easy to meet with people over lunch and have a comfortable talk. We like to keep things casual, but we also talk business, so it's a nice way of having a meeting. I usually have something light, like salad and fish. We have a big kitchen with a nice terrace on the fifth floor that has a beautiful view of the harbor and the whole of Antwerp.

3:00 P.M. I prefer to talk to people in person whenever possible, so I try to avoid sending too many e-mails. We are not corporate at all. It's a very young team. They teach me a lot because I'm not the youngest anymore and everything changes so fast. But sometimes I think, I was young in the late '70s and early '80s, and when you compare then to now, sometimes the young people are quite careful. I have to kick them a bit so they dare a little more. There's so much information now, and everybody sees everything. When we were young kids, we really wanted to shock, but you have to remember, it was the time of punk, and there was a lot of rebellion happening. It was a good thing. Now it's a bit more conventional.

7:30 P.M. If I'm working on the late side, Patrick and I will have dinner in the city. Most of the time when we go out after work, I just want something fast. We have one French restaurant we often go to called Hungry Henrietta, where they have a dish of the day. When you have to make decisions all day about colors and so on, going to a place where you know they have one good dish that you don't have to break your head about is very easy and practical. I go in, say "dish of the day," and I'm out in half an hour, having had some really delicious food.

8:00 P.M. After dinner I'll spend some time on the computer, or on a nice summer day I'll take another walk with Harry. We love to invite friends over maybe three times a week and sit outside around the table with a glass of wine. Other times I like to watch a movie on television. I'm quite open to the types of movies I watch because I want to discover new things, and you can become too fixated on seeing the same type of movie. For our exhibition, "Inspirations," held in Paris in 2014, I managed to narrow down my favorites to Il Gattopardo, The Piano, A Clockwork Orange, Chariots of Fire, and Tom Ford's A Single Man. More recently I loved Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel. Even when I don't like a movie, I sit through it just to see how it is, as an experience. Once I start a movie, I see the whole thing.

11:30 P.M. When I go to bed at night, I tend to lie awake for a while. There are so many different things I think about—they can be funny, or they can be less funny. As for what they are specifically—some things should remain personal!

Dan & Corina Lecca

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