WHEN THE SWISS textile designer and artist Christoph Hefti worked for the Belgian fashion designer Dries Van Noten in Antwerp from the late 1990s to 2010, he was involved in many parts of the process, from fabric design to budgets to collaborating with Italian printmakers. “It was rewarding,” says Hefti. “As part of the team, we built a vision with a great deal of concentration and mutual understanding.” When Hefti left the company to freelance, he eventually became frustrated — he found himself missing Van Noten’s holistic approach: “I design the fabric but someone else develops it into the final product, and I began to realize that wasn’t enough. I…