In a new video for season four of the “In the Studio” series, Dries Van Noten, from his office in Antwerp, Belgium, talked about being a control freak, the relationship between making fashion and food, and finding a mummified man in his building. And that’s the conversation that ended up on the cutting room floor. (This interview had been edited and condensed.)

Q. What was this building used for originally?

A. It was built to store wines and strong spirits. Then, in the Second World War, first the building was used by the Germans and after by the English. You can still find traces of the old occupations on the walls of the building. From the 1950s on, it was used as a warehouse for old museums. It was completely crammed full of stuff. There was a 13th-century mummified man, a 1950s hairdresser salon, big paintings made completely in postage stamps. We came here in the 2000s and had to empty the space.

Q. Did you like the fact that the building had all this history attached to it?

A. I like it always. The house where Patrick, my partner, and I live in is an old house with a lot of history. Good and bad things happened in the house. A lot of the furniture also has a history. The table and the chairs are coming from the courthouse here in Antwerp. They sold the whole lot just the moment that we came to this building, they kicked all their oak furniture out and took everything into plastic and ugly materials, so the cupboards and everything just came from the courthouse. The rug in my office is from a friend. In the 1980s, I was quite well known for my knitwear, and a lot of inspiration came from carpets, where I found ways to use structures and colors and depth of colors. Sometimes, the fastest way to explain to my manufacturer here in Belgium how I wanted it to look was not saying, “O.K., one roll of this and stitched like this and the yarn like that.” It was just showing the carpets. And that carpet was one of the sweaters.

Q. Is it important to you to be near the harbor?

A. I think the light, the view of the water, the way you really can look far down from here, is always important. To get quiet, I need a view. Sounds maybe kind of like a spoiled guy but I — I need it.