Dries Van Noten Finds Glamour in the Unexpected

2 min read

Glamour is a prickly thing. It can often be thought of as a far-off idea, something idolized on the runways or in film. Julian Klausner’s spring/summer 2027 collection for Dries Van Noten found something more intimate in it: the joy of dressing up, and not needing a reason to do so.

Klausner settled on glamour in the in-between. “An actress, after a day on set, takes the streets back to reality,” he wrote in the show notes, using taxi horns and sirens to soundtrack the models’ walk. Rather than a campy take on a starlet, the collection found beauty in the oddities of a wardrobe: a slinky cocktail dress over a rugby shirt, the jolt of a red lip worn through the day, strands of mismatched jewelry that looked borrowed from a film set.

There was a wonderfully offbeat approach to the way the clothes were shown. Casual button-up tops were layered under delightfully sequined blouses. A plunge-front silk dress was layered on top of a graphic tee. A colorful enamel brooch pinned together a sweatshirt-like piece, only to be dressed up with a flouncy semi-sheer skirt and one (yes, just one) hot-pink racing glove.

The house’s artisanal approach to craft came through in embroidered opera jackets and jacquard blazers, pinned with baubles that looked collected over time. Spray prints appeared on skirts and bias-cut evening dresses, carrying motifs from films that exist only in Klausner’s imagination.

The patterns were sometimes paired together—printmaxxing, if you will—or worn independently, but always with something extra, like a cowl top with a silk neckline that dripped in paillettes and fringe.

Klausner’s stack-it-all-on approach tapped into a broader appetite for dressing with abandon. Spring/summer 2027 has been a season of more-is-more: Tory Burch celebrated the “joy of getting dressed” in New York, Moschino explored the wardrobes of everyday life, and Dior and Bottega Veneta sent out collections rich in color and texture.

Here, Klausner’s maximalism is in the act of getting dressed itself: trying things on, piling on layers, and playing with character simply because you want to. “I kept thinking about glamour, in quite an innocent way,” he noted. “The desire to feel done up, simply because you want to. And how charming that is.”

Matthew Velasco is the Fashion News Editor at ELLE. Based in New York City, he previously worked as a News Writer at W magazine and an Assistant Editor at V magazine. Outside of fashion, he enjoys interior design, tennis (both watching and playing), and a jam-packed antique store.