Some fashion designers like to put their name or logo on everything just so you'll know how important they are.

Others prefer to quietly turn out quality work - and let others decide just how much influence they should have.

Belgium's Dries Van Noten is one those designers, and while his name may not be familiar yet, fashion insiders have decided it should be. Van Noten's clothes come in wearable, almost practical silhouettes, but in fabrics so rich and interesting that the look is anything but boring.

Last month, the Council of Fashion Designers of America named him international designer of the year, and retailers such as Neiman Marcus are excited about both his current and fall collections.

"He quietly moves forward and he's so influential. Everyone pays attention to what he's doing," says Neiman's fashion director Ken Downing of Van Noten. The spring-summer trend of painterly florals came straight from the designer's runway, Downing declares.

Van Noten, 50, comes from a fashion family. His grandfather and father, both tailors, were more interested in retailing. But Van Noten wasn't sold on that side of the business.

"My father thought I'd continue in buying and selling. My father wasn't very happy with it when I went into design" Van Noten says. "Now, he's pretty happy with it."

He launched his collection in 1986 and Barneys New York picked it up almost immediately. The business has grown steadily since then, but at a manageable pace, he says. Being in Belgium instead of Paris, Milan or New York allows him to be a big fish in a little pond.

Van Noten, whose business is entirely self-financed, laments what he sees has become a global, homogeneous business, although he tips his hat to the handful of his peers who eke out huge commercial success with still-creative collections. He's just not interested in being one of them.

"The 'normal' system of fashion has become a big machine, and I think it could be killing fashion," he says. "All stores look the same - it's the same, same, same. You have pre-collections, cruise collections. There are too many collections but only one brain and you need time to feed creativity."