Sunday Escape – Dries Van Noten's Neoclassical Mansion

This Sunday, we're taking you for a ride in the dream home of one of the most eclectic designers of our time: Dries Van Noten.

An evanescent personality, often careful to "maintain a healthy distance from the fashion world," Van Noten lives and works in Antwerp, where the headquarters of his company is, but his private shelter is in Lier, a small town in the heart of Flanders that hosts around 30 000 inhabitants.

In a sort of out-of-time atmosphere, Ringenhof Castle, where Van Noten lives with his partner Patrick Vangheluwe, was built around 1840, then it underwent many changes after being destroyed during the First World War and today it's a lovely Neoclassical mansion in the middle of a medieval town.

Furniture and interiors have been curated by interior designer Gert Voorjans, who also handles the store design of the brand, while the credit for the dream garden goes to the landscape architect Erik Dhont.

Placed on the surface of a lake, the vast estate it's a showcase of all the attention to detail, love for fabrics (it's a triumph of silk, brocade, velvet), for colour and for flowers that have always defined Dries Van Noten's  aesthetics and that provide him with a constant source of inspiration.

At the entrance, Belgian impressionist Léon de Smet's Nude and Bouquet (1922) is placed above a solid oak staircase, then we pass through the luminous Hall of Mirrors and we are in the Red Salon, perhaps the most eccentric room in the house, which is covered with rugs and carpets and features sofas in fine Lyonnaise silk.

The highlight, Van Noten 'sanctuary', though, is the garden. In a bustle of winding paths surrounded by coloured peonies, poppies, geraniums that go on for about 55 acres, we let ourselves be enchanted by the Victorian Rose Garden, by the small oak temple and by zigzagging path of hedges that brings us to the Swiss Cottage, the guesthouse.