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Could Dries Van Noten be seeking an external investor?

By Vivian Hendriksz

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London - Iconic Belgian designer Dries Van Noten is said to have hired Vendôme Global Partners to bring in an investor, after running his eponymous label completely independently for more than 30 years.

Sources indicate that a number of talks have already taken place, with a range of potential partners, according to WWD. Although it remains unclear what the likelihood is of a deal being made over the next coming week, the move would see the designer selling off part of his business for the first time.

Dries Van Noten, part of the avant-garde Antwerp Six, an influential collective of designers from Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts, is one of the few designers who has managed to grow his business into a multi-million empire without external investment. Instead of going down a more commercial path and launching additional products such as fragrances, or working with celebrities or even launching pre-collections, Dries Van Noten's success stems from his own vision for the brand.

"Our business doesn’t have to grow every year a huge amount like when you are a part of a big group," said the designer in an interview in 2013. "I don’t need to have a store in every city. It’s a luxury that I can say I just want to continue the way that we are doing…to be creative and be busy with things I really love and not be forced to do all the bags and the shoes and the sunglasses and things like that."

The luxury label currently counts stores in key cities such as Antwerp, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Seoul as well as strong list of retail clients, like Harrods, Barneys New York and Lane Crawford.

Dries van Noten
Investor