Show birds

Dries Van Noten SS19
By Lakeisha Goedluck | Fashion | 27 September 2018

For SS19, Dries Van Noten offered up a collection of contradictions. Revealed at the prestigious Palais de Tokyo, guests were given an indication as to what to expect through the creative director’s show invitations. Designed in collaboration with creative Luke Stephenson, the invites featured illustrations derived from Stephenson’s art series entitled: An incomplete dictionary of Show Birds.

Like a procession of exotic birds, Van Noten’s models took to the runway in feathered pieces imagined in ultra-bright colours. Plastic plumage came in the form of a canary-yellow top, which was paired with a longline white coat and matching loose-fitting cargo trousers. Meanwhile, an iridescent 1920s-style high-necked feathered dress was teamed with a clear mac covered in an abstract botanical print.

“Clashing and harmonious, spontaneous and deliberate,” was the ethos of this line, which made use of gentle cottons, glittering plastics and opulent silks. This was functional and delicate dressing at its finest, with the designer proving that workwear-meets-evening wear is the aesthetic that this generation of women is wholeheartedly here for. Hand-painted belted coats, billowing high-waisted trousers and striped stilettos were hallmark elements of a range that put maximalism and modernism at the forefront.

GALLERYCatwalk images from Dries Van Noten WSS19





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