Paris Fashion Week A/W 2013: womenswear collections

Dries Van Noten

‘Heaven, I’m in heaven…’ – Fred Astaire’s dulcet tones weren’t the only dreamy thing to resonate at Dries Van Noten’s show. Opening his show with ‘Cheek to Cheek’ (Astaire’s song for Ginger Rogers in the 1935 movie Top Hat), Van Noten pretty much prophesised what we would be feeling when we exited the beautiful cloistered halls of Paris’ City Hall – just heavenly. The idea of ‘fused genders’ was very much at the heart of the Belgian designer’s Fall serenade. Taking cues from both Fred and Ginger, the collection saw the likes of a men’s tailored shirt being tucked nonchalantly into a womanly wispy below-the-knee feathered skirt - a pair of grey trousers peeking just below the skirt’s hem. The structured, strong manliness of some of the looks, which in the first half were punctuated with preppy club-striped blazers and scarves, gradually glided into a softer gear: faded wallpaper motifs, chinoiserie, shimmering brocade and luxuriously textured ostrich feathers, which appeared as maribou trim on floaty tops and even punctuated with glittery stones on a particularly striking raspberry pink chiffon dress.

Photography: Jason Lloyd Evans; Writer: Apphia Michael