DISTANT shores are things to dream about – which makes them the perfect print with which to apply to Dries Van Noten’s spring/summer 2012 collection. A designer noted and lauded for his wearable and covetable creations, Van Noten took his inspiration from the architectural shapes of Spanish and Italian couture and combined them with a collaboration with English photographer James Reeve to create the prints in the second half of the show (nighttime scenes of Vegas, London and more), while showing off serene-scapes of palms and all things botanical to begin with.
So upon a fitted grey and white dress, played out a cascading river roaming down the mountains; next came a skirt with the same effect – depicting an outdoors scene and framing it in the world of the wearable but adding a point of interest through a subtle ruffle here or a puffed-up sleeve there.
Upon shirt-mac-dresses (you could get away with calling them either/and/or depending on when and how you wear them – the beauty of Dries, really), came yet more breezy and calm prints – up in the branches of sky-high trees. Van Noten is the master of print but here he also managed to keep it quiet, keep it cool. But we still had some vivid colour print mixes – pink blooms, turquoise light and patches of photographic prints all in a shirt.
The same mash-up worked its way on to skirts and day coats – loosely belted and worn with a hand in the pocket and that signature cool Van Noten nonchalance.
And there was lace, ruffles and peplum trousers in the equation too – the Spanish influence working its way into all those prints to create quite the feast for the eye, yet all the while wearable and so quite the fashion feat.
SEE THE DRIES VAN NOTEN SHOW ARCHIVE