Dries Van Noten on Greed and Stepping Back from Fashion

In an essay for CULTURED's Indulgence issue on the seven deadly sins, Dries Van Noten reflects on greed as a force shaping contemporary life—not just financially but emotionally and intellectually. He argues that greed standardizes desire, accelerates production, and diminishes the space for reflection and beauty. Van Noten, who grew up in a family of tailors, explains that fashion lives between creativity and business, but when business dominates, care and emotional connection disappear. Stepping away from the industry gave him distance to rediscover what drew him to fashion: the emotion in materials, the atmosphere of objects, and the importance of human intuition and craftsmanship. He sees a growing hunger for what feels genuinely human in a culture driven by algorithms and speed. The essay is part of a series featuring Jamieson Webster, Christine Sun Kim, Griffin Dunne, Mia Khalifa, Brontez Purnell, and Helen Molesworth.