Dries Van Noten visualizes women as a traveling sisterhood who roam the world picking up pieces of local costume as they continue their endless journey from season to season. At a guess, this fall, their long march has taken them to the far reaches of Eastern Europe—or thereabouts. Wherever, it's somewhere chilly, because the diaphanous Asian things they wore in summer have turned to heavy ethnic woolens and layers of garments—say, a jacket over a skirt over bloomers over thick leggings or massive shawls, embroidered in wool with chunky fringes over swinging coats.
What this creates is an almost pyramidal silhouette that obliterates the body but suggests a kind of ceremonial grandeur. One of Van Noten's signatures is the precious looking highly decorated scarf: this season's versions are embroidered and embellished with sequined patterns, and worn displayed on the front of the body like a religious garment. Elsewhere, the strengths of this collection were in the huge flounced skirts riding low on the hips, and in Van Noten's deft mixing of subtle colors and prints. In short, plenty to please his cult following of cross-cultural fashion nomads.
