Van Noten exhibits fine art of languid style

PARIS FASHION WEEK:THE SPRING/SUMMER collections opened in Paris yesterday with a number of events reinforcing the City of Light's long association with fashion and art.

At the Musée D’Orsay crowds queued for nearly an hour to see the much-lauded new exhibition Impressionism and Fashion linking some 80 famous paintings by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Dégas and others with the fashions of the time featuring 60 real dresses and menswear pieces.

Elsewhere, Le Bon Marché, Paris’s premier department store, celebrated 160 years with 500 specially commissioned items from more than 100 brands sold in the store.

On the catwalk, expectations are high for the double debut of Raf Simons at Dior and Hedi Slimane at Yves St Laurent; two talented 44-year-olds taking over the helm at French fashion’s most celebrated houses.

Slimane was well known for his menswear at Dior Homme and is credited with pioneering the skinny youth silhouette, while Belgian designer Simons won praise for his haute couture premiere at Dior in July. There are unconfirmed rumours that John Galliano may be making a comeback at Schiaparelli.

In the first of the big shows yesterday, Dries Van Noten took over the Gustaf Eiffel-designed former Citroën warehouse in the 15th arrondisement for a collection that in its own way was impressionistic in its free-flowing silhouettes, breezy layering and overall lightness of touch. It could have been called the clash of the tartans, such was the variety on display, but it was about the art of dressing, he said.

Dresses that were dusty and diaphanous floated over boyish trousers and shirts, ruffled tops were put over skinny prints, making for a masterful mix of tailoring and transparency. Upending traditional notions of masculine and feminine dress, Van Noten paired unlikely combinations such as silvery plaid skirts with sheer tartan blouses and chequerboard shorts with featherweight florals in a workable way.

Accessories such as white sunnies, tartan shoes and faux leopard clutches underlined the subversive but lighthearted approach of this fresh, languid and laid back collection.