If all a woman of style wanted for next winter was a great coat or jacket, at the Dries Van Noten show held in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Paris yesterday there was an embarrassment of choice in a collection as serene and lovely as its setting.
No one understands the power of nostalgia better than this Belgian designer, who can raid the masculine wardrobe for its fabrics and tailoring, adding softness and folk decoration to the mix that millions of women find irresistible.
It showed in a simple trio of black satin jacket, printed silk top and grey check trousers or in an embroidered skirt that kicked out under a swing coat shrugged open. Colours were both subtle and exuberant, and a green wool coat strewn with red-beaded embroidery and tightened with a jewelled belt was as rich and as luxurious as that of a Cossack.
The show was a clever contrast of volume and textures from grey checks, plaids and Wedgwood print wools to brocades, satins, leathers and furs. Van Noten is known for his love of ethnic dress but tailored to urban metropolitan tastes.
A frock coat and a full skirt was a typical romantic duet whether in sober black wool or fashioned in metallic brocades fit for a modern courtesan. The details were telling; a black corsage on a tweed lapel, plum high heels with ballerina ribbons, fur cravats adding a snug, luxurious look to neat jackets.
If Van Noten can master colour and texture, nobody can mix prints and pattern with more brio than Clements Ribeiro whose show for Cacharel lacked its usual sparkle and assurance.
Low-cut cardigans and skirts in dark abstract or graphic prints seemed lacklustre even when worn with multi-coloured spotted black tights, while teal is a colour best left to birds. If folksy drawstring brown plaid coats or orange wool jackets did little to flatter, all that was missing from flouncy red and white check skirts and fringed suede boots were cowboy hats.
One designer who brought a different perspective to the multicultural melting pot that is fashion these days was the Japanese designer Tsumori Chisato who has been described as a Japanese Chloe.
Her bold shapes, fearlessness with colour and delicate play with motifs mark her out as an original. An eagle image was treated in several ways: as a central leather insignia on a dress, as a silk print or tapestry stitched on a cape. Her treatment of English country tweeds and Liberty cottons was light and girlish.
And if an eagle gave the show a flying start, her final circular feathered skirts in sunset shades of marabou with delicate sequinned chiffon tops sent it out soaring.