“For me, beauty has always been a way to cope with the world, a way to clear the head, to create order, move forward,” muses Dries Van Noten. The Belgian designer, who exited his fashion house in 2024 after founding it in 1986, is now turning towards a new chapter with the launch of Fondazione Dries Van Noten alongside Patrick Vangheluwe. For someone long preoccupied with beauty, Venice emerged as a fitting point of departure. The foundation, dedicated to promoting craftsmanship as a vital language of cultural identity, opens this month with its inaugural temporary presentation, The Only True Protest Is Beauty. Curated by Van Noten with Geert Bruloot, the showcase brings into dialogue 200 works from both established and emerging voices across fashion, food, architecture, art and design, and offers an interconnected global perspective on today’s craft.
The move feels like an expansion of fashion’s deepest concerns rather than a departure from it. For decades, Van Noten resisted the industry’s increasing velocity – its demand for constant novelty and erosion of process – by insisting on a slower, more deliberate rhythm. His collections underscored his bravado for composition – the emotional resonance of colour, texture and reference. In this sense, the Fondazione reads as a natural evolution – a space where those same questions can unfold beyond the constraints of seasonal calendars. It is also a recalibration of authorship, shifting the focus away from one designer and towards a constellation of makers whose practices are rooted in place, history and the hand. In turn, the presentation gathers statements from art and fashion visionaries. To wit: Rei Kawakubo, who once said, “I am interested in beauty that disturbs.” Or Joris Laarman, who remarked, “Combining reason with emotion, that’s the most difficult thing to do – in design and in everything.” What emerges is both a presentation and a proposition – a living methodology in which creativity, freed from hierarchy and disciplinary borders, becomes a shared language. Here, forms of expression coexist and inform one another, challenging long-standing divisions between art and craft, fashion and culture, aesthetics and meaning. “I do not intend it simply as beautiful objects or images. It can come from the simplest things – a landscape at a certain hour, the way light falls, a great dish and the pleasure of preparing it,” shares Van Noten.
Choosing Venice as the fondazione’s home is far from incidental. It signals an invitation to encounter a different side to the designer – one that is decidedly Italian. “Venice has a way of slowing you down and opening you up,” he explains. “The moment you arrive, the rhythm of life changes; you walk everywhere, look around and meet people by accident.” “There are no cars pushing you from one place to the next, and that creates a kind of mental space which is very rare today.” It is within this space that he places what one may perceive as the foundation’s core values: time, curiosity and dialogue – elements that together create an atmosphere “that feels incredibly precious”. The floating city remains a singular crossroad. Students, gatekeepers, vagabonds and intellectuals converge, drawn by a search for meaning shaped by the very hands that lift the city above its darkened waters. “Launching the fondazione here felt natural because the city already embodies the values we want to nurture – openness, beauty, fragility, resilience and the constant conversation between the past and future. Venice is not just the setting for the fondazione, it is part of its spirit.” There is something inherently theatrical about Venice too – its façades, its decaying grandeur, its shifting light – that resonates with Van Noten’s enduring fascination with atmosphere. The city reveals itself slowly as corners become discoveries and shadows transform into textures. The fondazione mirrors this rhythm, inviting visitors to not move quickly, but attentively.
In this context, the fondazione also operates as a counterpoint to a culture increasingly defined by speed and disposability. It proposes instead a return to attention, an ethics of observing, creating and experiencing that privilege's depth over immediacy. By foregrounding craftsmanship not as nostalgia but as a living, evolving practice, Van Noten positions the handmade as both a cultural anchor and an arena of innovation. The gesture is subtle yet radical; he insists that care, time and human touch remain central to how we create and connect. The Palazzo Pisani Moretta, the storied 15th-century residence of the fondazione, embodies this dialogue between the past and present. Van Noten was drawn to the 43,000-square-foot space for its “strong personality”, one that’s like his own design language. His initial vision of a neutral setting quickly gave way to the building’s layered history. Held by the same family for over four centuries, the palazzo now opens its doors to the public, unveiling frescoes and textures once hidden from view. Its façade, overlooking the Grand Canal, exemplifies Venetian Gothic elegance, while its halls have hosted figures such as Tsar Paul I of Russia and Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. “It becomes a kind of choreography between the past and the present,” says Van Noten. “I have always believed that combinations matter more than isolated things.”
The presentation is featured across three floors and 20 rooms. It also includes behind‐the‐scenes videos, which highlight processes and dialogues with the designers, who speak about their intentions and the craftsmanship behind each piece. “The selection grew very naturally,” the designer reflects. “I was looking for works that carry emotion and spark curiosity. Some pieces surprised me, others challenged me, and many simply felt right the moment I saw them.” Among the featured artists is Ayham Hassan, a Palestinian fashion designer whose work is deeply informed by his upbringing in the West Bank. Through collaborations with local artisans, Hassan draws on Palestinian craftsmanship to evoke Ramallah, weaving narratives of resilience, healing and identity. A graduate of Central Saint Martins, he uses fashion as a vessel for storytelling, grounded in both personal and collective memory. His work enters into conversation with that of Venetian jewellery house Codognato, French couturier Christian Lacroix, American jewellery designer Sophie Buhai, Taiwanese visual artist Pao Hui Kao, British sculptor Kate MccGwire, Japanese ceramic artist Katsuyo Aoki and Spanish multidisciplinary artist Kiko López, among others. “I have always loved bringing different generations together,” Van Noten continues. “Established voices have a certain depth and experience, while younger creatives bring a sense of urgency and experimentation. When you place them side by side, something interesting happens; they strengthen one another and open new readings. I also believe in leaving space for intuition and coincidence. You think you know where a piece belongs and then another work enters the room and changes everything. That is part of the pleasure.” This interplay between intention and accident becomes a curatorial gesture in itself – one that resists total control. It allows for moments of surprise, even contradiction, and acknowledges that meaning is never fixed but constructed in real time through encounter and perception.
With the fondazione’s manifesto articulating its commitment to celebrating creativity, one is reminded that each individual can, in their own way, become a soldier of culture. Perhaps the most enduring form of continuity lies in something deceptively simple – to love one’s neighbour. “In times that increasingly feel politically, socially and environmentally ugly, beauty becomes more than aesthetic pleasure; it’s a form of insistence,” adds Van Noten. “It is a refusal to let cynicism or brutality dictate how we see or feel.” He furthers that beauty has the power to both “soothe” and “sharpen”. “It can raise ‘unnecessary questions’,” he muses. “The kind that disturbs complacency and opens new ways of thinking.” The designer references American protest singer Phil Ochs, who wrote about the Vietnam War and civil rights. “Phil Ochs’s line, ‘In such an ugly time, the only true protest is beauty,’ struck me because it captures this paradox. Beauty is gentle, but not passive. It asks us to remain open when the world encourages us to close. And that, I believe, is a form of resistance.”
This article was originally published in the April 2026 issue of Vogue Arabia.
