Dries Van Noten: Feathers and Fur

The Hotel de Ville, with its marble staircases and countless chandeliers (not to mention the security screening at the entrance that had the fashion crowd packed into a scrum), is one of the more formidable venues at Paris Fashion Week. This made it the perfect backdrop for Belgian designer Dries Van Noten’s Fall Winter 2013/2014 presentation that took place early Wednesday. Not one for austere minimalism, this season Van Noten celebrated fashion in all its finery, working with appliqué diamantes and embroidered motifs in addition to an abundance of feathers and fur.

It was a remarkably girlish collection (hello hot pink, feathered, and bejewelled dresses!) for a designer who usually prefers a tomboy aesthetic, but any frivolity was perfectly balanced by more mannish styles including charcoal pinstripe suits and what might be this season’s most perfect white shirt (so far).