Tim Blanks

For four decades, Dries Van Noten defined a singular path in global fashion with a universe rooted in intellectual rigour, exquisite craftsmanship and independence. When he stepped back from his eponymous brand last year, it wasn’t a retreat into a quiet retirement. Instead, Van Noten has embarked on a profound transition — moving from the relentless, dictated rhythm of fashion to a new life as a custodian of culture in Venice. Van Noten has established a new foundation (@fondazionedriesvannoten ) at the Palazzo Pisani Moretta, a space dedicated to the beauty of craftsmanship and the belief that in a world marked by global uncertainty, the act of making something beautiful is the ultimate form of protest. In this special episode of The BoF Podcast, our editor-at-large Tim Blanks (@timblanks ) speaks to Dries Van Noten about this remarkable transition to becoming a custodian of beauty. 🎙️ Listen now #linkinbio #TheBoFPodcast 📷 Fe Pinheiro

I want to be Dries Van Noten when I grow up. After four decades as fashion’s favourite icon of independence, he has embarked on an enviable next act by establishing his own art foundation in a 15th century palazzo on the Grand Canal in Venice. The @FondazioneDriesVanNoten opened its first exhibition last week. He’s called it “The Only True Protest Is Beauty” and he mounts a convincing case for that proposal across more than 200 pieces of art, craft and fashion, all displayed against the imposing backdrop of the palazzo itself with ceilings that stretch to 6.5-metres high.  The exhibition’s title is a quote by songwriter Phil Ochs, a contemporary of Bob Dylan’s in the Sixties: “In such an ugly time, the only true protest is beauty.” No coincidence obviously, although Van Noten thought when he originally chose Och’s words 18 months ago, the state of global affairs would surely have improved by the time the show opened. “I think everybody knows it’s an ugly time, and I’m a positive person, I don’t want to say, ‘Poor us, look where we are, the world is so bad.’ No, we have to look forward.” In conversation with @TimBlanks , Dries Van Noten reflects on why “retirement” was never part of the plan, and how Venice is shaping his next chapter — from fashion to foundation, from Antwerp to La Serenissima, his story is far from finished. Read more #linkinbio 📷 @camillaglorioso , @demayda

In conversation with @timblanks for System Issue No. 25, @jonathan.anderson reflects on his first year at @dior : adjusting to the scale of the institution, navigating its internal dynamics, and beginning to put in place his longer-term vision for the brand. Together, they discuss the realities of taking on one of fashion’s most powerful roles. Watch the full conversation at the link in bio. Interview by @timblanks Directed & Produced by @deux.deux.deux @ghodsilla DOPs @lou.respinger @julia_eklund @jeremie_levy_ Lights by @aziyade_abauzit Sound & Mix @by.milcis Edit by @flxogee Original music composition by @frederic_sanchez #JonathanAnderson #TimBlanks #LHommeDior #SystemMagazine

Matthieu Blazy is a born world builder. His never-ending research into everything Gabrielle Chanel ever said or did is continually throwing up similar nuggets of inspiration, like the interview she gave to the French newspaper Le Figaro in 1955. “We need dresses that crawl, dresses that fly, because the butterfly doesn’t go to the market, and the caterpillar doesn’t go to the ball.” Asked for her favourite colour, Chanel answered, “Everyone would expect it to be black, but it’s actually iridescent.” Like a butterfly’s wings. Her musings took Blazy to a higher state. The collection he showed on Monday was the spectacular result. Read Tim Blanks (@timblanks )’ full review at the #linkinbio 📷 @chanelofficial

Demna’s first show for Gucci opened with a little white dress, a seamless silk tube woven like a stocking. He thought of it as a blank slate, a statement about body-consciousness from which followed every other second-skin piece of clothing that made its way down the runway. It was a celebration of the body which came from a designer who has finally learned to love his own after a lifetime of despising the way he looked. It was also an experiment, one that has confounded, even inflamed, an audience who were maybe expecting an answer to the question posed by The New York Times on the eve of the debut: Can Demna Save Gucci? “I hope it is polarising,” the designer said during a conversation the day before the show, “because it is important to include that in my vision of Gucci. I like this idealised version of it. It’s not about body diversity and stuff like that. I’ve been through that already. It is important, but this is different. This is about healthy. This is about sexy. This is about being impressed by someone, or being turned on by someone.” Tim Blanks offers his expert take on Demna’s first Gucci show, an urgent meditation on beauty ideals and sex appeal in today’s world. Read the full report #linkinbio ✍️ @timblanks 📷 Courtesy

Pamela Anderson is entering a busy new chapter. In conversation with Tim Blanks, she describes a run of upcoming films and stage projects – from indie features and festival-bound debuts to auteur-led dramas. The rule now is simple: “I’m only taking on projects that I feel very challenged by,” she says. After decades in the spotlight, her focus has shifted and she’s treating the moment like a true beginning. Read the interview at the link in bio. Photography @collierschorrstudio Styling @rebeccaperlmutar @pamelaanderson in conversation with @timblanks Editor-in-chief @susannahfrankel   Art direction @sj_todd_   Casting @gkldprojects Hair @johnnollet Make-up @yumilee_mua Set design @kadulennox Production @henstoothproductions Executive producer @mpacetx On-set producer @jewishthunder Production manager @brennasmit Post-production @twothreetwo_studio Special thanks to Brent Adams Slide one: @pamelaanderson is wearing @thearclondon , @miumiu and @theofficialpandora Slide two: @junyawatanabe and @theofficialpandora Slide four: @prada and @theofficialpandora Slide five: Autumn/Winter 2002 @balenciaga by @nicolasghesquiere from @alexanderfuryarchive and @helmutlang from @dossierldn Slide six: @commedesgarcons from @20age_archive and @theofficialpandora The 50th issue, marking 25 years of AnOther Magazine, is on sale from Thursday, 12 March #AnOtherMagazineSS26 #PamelaAnderson

London was a hotbed of independent designers when @Erdem Moralioğlu launched his label back in 2005. Twenty years later, structural shifts in the fashion market and the shocks of Covid-19 and Brexit have pushed many of the city’s indie brands to the brink and beyond. But Erdem has survived, building a business that has stood the test of time. On the eve of London Fashion Week, @TimBlanks sat down with Erdem to understand how his label has outlived peers with a consistent and soulful signature rooted in a fascination with the feminine, the tension between control and ‘undone-ness’ and an obsession with beauty. Head to the #linkinbio to read the exclusive interview, 20 Years of Erdem: London’s Indie Survivor. ✍️ @timblanks 📹 @an_gel_n

Editor-at-large, Tim Blanks (@timblanks ) and editor-in-chief, Imran Amed (@imranamed ) are back from the Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2026 shows where the biggest moments of the week lived up to all the anticipation. Jonathan Anderson’s debut at Dior reframed couture as a six-month creative lab — a backbone that can feed the entire maison with technique, emotion and ideas. At Chanel, Matthieu Blazy stripped away the obvious codes to put construction, movement and the body first — the kind of couture you only fully understand up close. There was also Valentino’s “panorama” staging and Schiaparelli’s turbocharged push for spectacle — all playing out against a tougher luxury backdrop this year’ “Something that struck me about this season is the energy that everybody was evoking,” Blanks says. “The words people used to describe their feelings — it was Jonathan talking about having a lot of anger he needed to get out, or Mathieu talking about nature, or Alessandro talking about fantasy and fashion, and then Daniel Roseberry talking about turbocharging Schiaparelli.” 🎙️ Listen now #linkinbio #BoFPodcast

Couture is alive in the dreamweaving hands of Alessandro Michele at Valentino and Daniel Roseberry at Schiaparelli. At Valentino, Michele told Tim Blanks, “There is no fantasy without beauty. There is no beauty without fantasy. There is no freedom without beauty and fantasy.” While at Schiaparelli, last season, Roseberry talked about resetting the house’s rigorous mould. This season, he started with a silhouette he called “turbo-charged,” with a pendulum swing in the opposite direction. “I used to write the review I wanted and then work back from that, but this was about focusing on the feeling while making it.” More internal, in other words, more explorative, more extreme. It showed in the techniques. Read Tim Blanks (@timblanks )’ report on the evolving language of couture #linkinbio 📷 + 🎥: @maisonvalentino , @schiaparelli

Matthieu Blazy’s sublime haute couture debut at Chanel had its unlikely roots in Japanese anime. The designer was struck to his soul by a haiku he came across. Bird on a mushroom. / I saw the beauty at once. / Then gone, flown away. “It was so poetic,” he mused during a preview. “Considering what’s happening around us every day, I thought maybe what couture can offer is a kind of parenthesis, like a dream, even if we manage a 20-minute escape and just throw poetry on the table. That was the idea: very simple, this bird on a mushroom.” Read Tim Blanks (@timblanks )’ report on the vision behind Chanel’s latest couture chapter #linkinbio 📷 Spotlight/Launchmetrics.com 🎥 @chanelofficial

On the eve of her final runway show after 38 years at Hermès, Véronique Nichanian sits down with Tim Blanks (@timblanks ) to discuss her life at the French luxury powerhouse, designing for men as a woman, the ‘magic’ the fashion industry has lost, her successor Grace Wales Bonner and what comes next. Explore the full interview as Véronique Nichanian reflects on her legacy — and the future #linkinbio 📷 Courtesy

“Valentino: Live a hundred years!” That was the fervent wish of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the designer’s most famous client, in 1966. He almost made it. Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani died today at the age of 93. He managed to outlive Jackie, and also his rivals Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld, with whom he was so often linked. Women’s Wear Daily had names for them all. Yves the King, Karl the Kaiser, Valentino the Chic. But the documentary that was released about him in 2008, the year he retired, bequeathed Valentino another, more enduring title: the Last Emperor. It was the perfect sobriquet for a man whose life had a distinctly imperial gloss, though he himself blanched at the notion. He thought Valentino hardly sounded like an emperor’s name. And yet he lived like one. Grand collections of art and objets were housed in a selection of magnificent homes: a palazzo on the Piazza Mignanelli and a villa on the Appian Way in Rome; a 19th century mansion in London; a chalet in Gstaad; a penthouse in New York, and, just outside Paris, the Château de Wideville, once home to one of Louis XVII’s mistresses. Valentino’s 152-foot yacht the T.M.Blue One was a familiar sight around the Mediterranean in the summer. Then there were the parties. Read more by @TimBlanks #linkinbio