Belgian designer Dries Van Noten had a bit of an annus mirabilis in 2017: he held his 100th show last March; a few months later a book focusing on each of his collections came out and there was also a documentary, Reiner Holzemer's "Dries", one of those rare fashion films that sometimes manages to reveal the most intimate aspects in the life of a designer.
It can be difficult to follow up such a year, so Van Noten decided to opt for "a fresh start" for his A/W 18 menswear show, that took place during Paris Fashion Week at the former sorting center for the French Post Office and Customs and Excise.
Announced in a video message released to replace backstage interviews, the fresh start was actually Van Noten's trademark rich and balanced mix of moods and fabrics.
Tartans and checks were used for jackets and trousers, the latter were matched in some cases with half-kilts (a punk trend of the season as seen on other runways…).
Jackets covered in trademark intricate floral embroideries and embellishments crafted in India in Van Noten's own ateliers obviously made an appearance, but they were combined with other influences such as the American West, a theme introduced by cowboy shirts covered in surreal fringes that seemed to have overgrown the garments on which they were applied.
Romance was tackled via broderie anglaise trousers, coats and shirts in white or navy, the eyelets creating shadow and light motifs with the skin of the models.
Dichotomies also contributed to create intriguing juxtapositions: loose granny crocheted jumpers and hand-crafted knit collars were matched with military coats; a navy tracksuit was transformed with cowboy-shirt piping in a contrasting dark honey shade, while a psychedelic example of art – a detail from Robert Beatty's cover for "Rarity of Experience" by Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band – was followed by more formal textures.
Psychedelia also appeared in the main part of the collection, a long series of light nylon smock coats, raincoats and bomber jackets with blown-up prints inspired by the marbled endpaper in old books.
Marbling is a decorative art technique consisting in producing patterns similar to marble or other stones by making colour float on plain water or on a viscous solution.
The floating colours are then manipulated either by blowing on them directly or through a straw, fanning the colours or stirring them, (in 19th century, Tokutaro Yagi, the Kyoto master of Japanese marbling, developed a method that uses a split piece of bamboo to stir the colours and create concentric designs) and then transferring them to paper or fabric.
This technique was already popular in Asia in the 15th century and was imported two centuries later by European travellers to the Middle East.
They mainly applied it to book covers and end-papers, but also employed it to line chests, drawers and bookshelves and they adapted this art to marble the edges of books as well.
During the Renaissance many scientists were attracted by marbling, including Daniel Schwenter and Athanasius Kircher, and illustrations of marblers at work and images of the tools of the trade were included in the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert.
The art became even more popular after the publication of The Art of Marbling in 1853 by English maker Charles Woolnough.
In a way, while the collection should have been edited, the eye-candy provided by the marbled prints was too pleasant to stop it from coming, and there were too many shades to pick from: vivid turquoise tones broke the military monotony of deep olive greens; bright lemon swirls mixed with teal, while purple erupted on a grey coat.
The visual impact was strong and just when you thought you had found a favourite combination of colour, a better one that was even more enticing arrived on the runway.
As a whole this was a recollaged collection of previous designs, but the fresh start was right in front of you, in that repetition and variation of colour marbling, symbolising that a new endless experimentation with tones, shades and patterns will be the way forward for Van Noten.
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