Soie Malaquais
Eau de Parfum
Dries Van Noten
Favourite
Dries Van Noten
Art-led designer fragrance built on floral contrast, herbs, woods, and offbeat textures.
About Dries Van Noten
Dries Van Noten is the fashion label of Belgian designer Dries Van Noten, who was born in Antwerp in 1958 and studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. He presented his first collection in London in 1986, and the brand later expanded from fashion into fragrance in 2022.
The fragrance line mirrors the label's core visual language: unexpected contrasts, floral textures, herbal facets, woods, and incense-like depth rather than generic crowd-pleasing sweetness. The brand launched with a gender-fluid collection of eaux de parfum developed with multiple international perfumers, and it also emphasizes refillable packaging and naturally derived ingredients.
Puig joined the company in 2018, giving the house a stronger beauty platform before the fragrance debut. In 2024, Dries Van Noten stepped down as creative director, with the studio taking over upcoming collections. The perfume range remains tied to his Antwerp garden, artisanal instincts, and a deliberately unconventional approach to composition.
At a Glance
The Brand
Founded
1986
Founder
Dries Van Noten
Country
Belgium
Category
Designer
Scent Personality
Worth It?
Scent DNA
Floral
green
woody
spicy
resinous
- These scents are not built to smell generic or easy
- They lean into unusual pairings - rose with herbs, florals with woods, soft musks with bitter green notes - and they tend to feel styled rather than purely sensual. The house aesthetic is intellectual and tactile, with a strong preference for contrast over harmony
- Expect artistic compositions, often genderless in feel, with a polished but slightly subversive edge
Top Notes
Heart Notes
Base Notes
Typical Performance
Longevity
Long
Projection
Moderate
Positioning
A designer, luxury house known for floral compositions.
How It Compares
- → More artistic than Jo Malone London
- → More unconventional than Dior
- → More floral-textural than Tom Ford
- → Less mainstream than Chanel
Who It's For
Best For
- spring wear
- daytime statement scents
- green-floral lovers
- design-conscious buyers
- gender-neutral fragrance wardrobes
Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths
- highly distinctive compositions
- strong artistic identity
- excellent packaging and presentation
- well suited to niche-style fragrance collectors
Weaknesses
- not broadly mass-appealing
- can feel expensive for the performance
- some blends are more conceptual than wearable
Brand Evolution
The brand began as a fashion house and only entered fragrance in 2022, so the perfume identity is still relatively new. From the start, it has leaned on genderless positioning, refillable formats, and ingredient storytelling rather than classic designer-flanker logic. Its direction suggests a move toward a broader luxury beauty business under Puig, but the actual scent style has stayed tightly linked to Dries Van Noten's own visual and botanical world. The result is a niche-leaning designer line that feels curated rather than commercial.
Quick Verdict
This is for buyers who want fragrance with a point of view, not easy crowd-pleasers. The line is stylish, unusual, and genuinely distinctive, but it will not suit anyone looking for safe designer perfume.
Perfumers
Dries Van Noten Fragrances