Klausner’s Spring 2026 Collection Proves Optimism Can Still Lead The Way At Dries Van Noten
By Kenneth Richard
Julian Klausner slipped out from the backstage crush at Palais de Tokyo, seeking a patch of daylight and a little air. Tall, composed, still glowing with the adrenaline of his sophomore women’s outing, he carried himself with the mixture of relief and quiet exhilaration familiar to anyone suddenly asked to shoulder history. For six years he had been Dries Van Noten’s right hand inside the studio, the quiet architect behind silhouettes, casting, and imagery. Now, less than a year after being named Creative Director, Klausner is the one at the center, guiding both women’s and men’s collections of the house that bears his mentor’s name. If the spotlight feels daunting, he wears it with a disarming candor—still adjusting to its glare, but prepared to embrace it.
I caught up with him just outside, as guests filtered past and Dries himself lingered in the wings alongside Puig’s CEO, Marc Puig, and Dries Van Noten CEO, Axel Keller. Klausner was still processing the momentum of his young tenure. “It was such a lot of people read into it something very optimistic, very joyful,” he told me, recalling the reaction to his first men’s show back in July. “Which I hadn’t really intended to do. And it was really inspiring for me to feel that a collection or a show can provoke that kind of emotion. So it was really one of the starting points this season—how can we make something that feels hopeful, joyful, optimistic?”
That optimism took shape on the runway in the form of surfers and sunsets, the abstract elegance of a wetsuit, the grandeur of evening light. “It’s something so simple, that happens every evening, but it can also be so grand, so energizing,” he said. The show opened in muted motifs and pale tones, before swelling into a crescendo of vibrant color and bold energy.
“Thinking of joy and optimism, one of the things that came to mind was the ’60s,” Klausner added. Twinsets, simple geometrics, playful prints—like paper cut-outs expanded across silk and jersey—each piece paid tribute to an era symbolic of hope. If hints of Werner Panton’s palette could be glimpsed, Klausner brushed it off as coincidence. For him, it was about letting color lead the way, from chalky grays and whites to the sharp clash of red on white in a bold finale.
The music carried its own narrative. Guests entered to the sound of waves, layered into Philip Glass’s Mishima score as performed by the Kronos Quartet. “What struck me so much with the music is thinking of the sunset, this balance of simple and grandness,” he said. “I wanted the waves to be playing as guests were coming. The waves are still playing now.”
His jewelry echoed the same shimmer. “For me, the Dries woman is a woman who loves objects, likes to collect things,” he told me, explaining how rhinestones, shoelaces, and small rings were assembled like keepsakes. “Things you want to keep close to you.”
Nature, inevitably, runs through his narrative. “Yes, I would say nature, actually, and it’s not only about myself—it’s a part of the brand for me,” Klausner reflected.
For me, Dries’s work was always so inspired by nature, all forms of nature. Of course people think of the flowers, but not only that. I think Dries had a very simple way of taking inspiration from the things that surround him, and of course I’m influenced by that having worked with him.”
Before we parted, I asked if he was getting used to the role. He laughed, half self-aware, half still marveling at the whirlwind. “Well, it’s the third time now, so it’s quite impressive. Little by little, I guess it’s part of the game.”
And perhaps that is the point. In an industry often prone to cynicism, Klausner’s instinct for optimism feels like a timely tonic. Fashion, like the tide, can recede into darkness or surge toward light. In his hands at Dries Van Noten, it is still choosing the latter—an embrace of possibility, a wave worth riding.
