{"id":5141,"date":"2026-01-09T02:21:31","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T10:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/?p=5141"},"modified":"2026-01-09T02:21:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T10:21:31","slug":"the-fondazione-dries-van-noten-in-venice-will-be-a-space-to-showcase-and-nurture-the-art-of-making-in-all-its-forms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/?p=5141","title":{"rendered":"The Fondazione Dries Van Noten in Venice Will Be \u201ca Space to Showcase and Nurture the Art of Making in All Its Forms\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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So, what drew you to Venice? The city is breathtaking, but not exactly the easiest place to navigate, quite literally. What was it that compelled you, on a personal or cultural level, to dive headfirst into this Venetian adventure?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The story actually begins seven or eight years ago. When I was 59, I started thinking about the future\u2014both of my brand and of Patrick and me as a couple. We knew we needed to find someone to take over the brand. Closing it wasn\u2019t really an option; there was too much identity, too many elements that could continue under someone who respected its soul while bringing their own touch. The archive was complete, and our Antwerp team\u2014many of whom had been with us for 20, 25, even 35 years\u2014was deeply connected to the brand. Simply saying, \u201cSorry, I\u2019m 65, goodbye,\u201d wouldn\u2019t have been honest, really.<\/p>\n

So we decided to step down when I turned 65, partly because, having grown up in fashion\u2014my parents owned stores, I tagged along on buying trips since I was 12\u2014it felt like fashion had been my life for more than five decades, and I wanted to see what else was out there. Covid delayed our plans by a year, so technically I stepped back at 66, not 65. But last year, we finally said, \u201cOkay, we\u2019re stopping. Time for something else.\u201d We had some ideas.<\/p>\n

You certainly don\u2019t lack imagination. What were these ideas?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve always been very fond of Italy. We even have a summer house on the Amalfi Coast. We loved the food, the people, everything. So choosing Italy felt almost inevitable. Then, as often happens, a bit of serendipity took over. A friend once stayed with us in Belgium in the little guesthouse on our property. After a lovely dinner, she mentioned, \u201cI still have an apartment in Venice. Why don\u2019t you come and stay?\u201d From there, through a chain of events involving our friend Robert Carsten, we ended up staying in her apartment in a beautiful palazzo instead of a hotel, and suddenly Venice revealed itself in an entirely different light.<\/p>\n

Usually, it\u2019s treated like a weekend zoo visit\u2014you see the surface, the postcards, the gondolas. But staying in an apartment revealed the city beneath the beauty: proud Venetians, bustling markets, fabulous fishmongers and butchers, and a young generation ready to carry it forward. Venice isn\u2019t just a city of nostalgia; there\u2019s energy, schools, students, and grassroots creativity bubbling under the surface. It\u2019s not flashy like New York or London, it doesn\u2019t shout about being hip. You have to immerse yourself in its life to feel its subtle, layered magic. We were utterly captivated.”<\/p>\n

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\"Image<\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cWhat I truly love about a garden is the quiet, the space to walk, the absence of traffic: no cars, no trucks, no traffic lights, no noise. Venice, in a surprising way, offers much the same.\u201d explains Dries Van Noten.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photo: Camilla Glorioso\/ Courtesy of Dries Van Noten<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, what drew you to Venice? The city is breathtaking, but not exactly the easiest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[234],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-runway"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}