A palette of petals: Dries van Noten

Prints lounge upon the body and skim the skin softly, the way that petals flutter in the breeze. Clothes slip from the shoulders, slide over the hips, caress the breasts and thighs. The pieces move naturally. Like flowers in a garden, these dresses, skirts and blouses seem alive. Who could resist such floral creations? Who could resist the woman who wears them?

The fabric that Dries van Noten uses in his designs is the product of his own imaginary greenhouse. Patterns grow organically in his mind, sprouting from an image collected here, a sensation gathered there. His palette is tropical, his form ethnic. Was that a movement of a sari? A sarong? a kimono? International influences such as these might result in a quaint or even rural print, but van Noten knows how to transform the traditional into the contemporary. In his hands, florals become decisively modern.

The fashion-forward graphic designs of his prints depends on multiple contrasts, the way that the bright colour of a woman's lipstick contrasts with the pale blue of her eyes, her matt skin, her chocolate hair. The colors and forms go together, but not simplistically so. The border upon the hem is silver, the bodice saffron, the flowers collected from a paradise we've never seen but can visit through these clothes. The blossoms breed before our eyes, as one print migrates into the next. Dressed in a single weightless garment, a woman can wear more than one print at a time, the variations melding into a free-form bouquet.

Lightness is a van Noten motif, and his recent collections suggest that the designer is more immaterial than ever. Floral designs always have an ephemeral quality, as if, like the real thing, they were on a verge of disappearing. Van Noten's creations belong to a realm where clothes brush the skin as lightly as lips and feel just as good.

(Source: Bloom 17)