PARIS - Fashion great Dries Van Noten made an emotional farewell at Paris Fashion Week on Saturday as he headed into retirement at just 66.
"I don't know how I'm feeling yet. It was very intense, I'm really very happy," he said backstage immediately after the show.
Hundreds came to a hangar in northern Paris to bid adieu to the "Flemish master".
With designers such as Giorgio Armani and the late Karl Lagerfeld determined to work well into their 80s, Van Noten's decision to hang up his needles earlier this year came as a shock.
While not a household name, he is beloved in fashion circles for a 40-year career in which he combined audacity, sophistication and poetry.
His signature looks -- popular with both sexes -- were all in the show: impeccably cut suits, innovative materials, cleverly clashing colours -- all of it finding the meeting point between slouchy comfort and elegant tailoring.
"It was never going to be a best-of," Van Noten said.
"It was really the idea to do new materials: wadding of recycled cashmeres, transparent recycled polyester and those classic English wools.
"The clashes of all those things were really important to me. I hope they worked."
His staff will take over collections starting with the womenswear show in September, with the only condition that they remain in Antwerp, away from the Paris fashion hubbub.
The Puig Group, which acquired a majority stake in the label in 2018, agreed.
Van Noten told The New York Times last week it was time to give up the "addiction" of fashion.
"Everything's too intense. I can't come down anymore," he said.