Dries Van Noten is obsessed with cloth – at least, he was this season. Seems like a daft thing to say, as without cloth we’d all be naked like the fashion show in that dodgy Robert Altman film Prêt-à-porter (incidentally, the real collection was Sonia Rykiel. Bet you did’t know that?). But Dries writ his fabric sources large on his winter 2017 collection – shetland suppliers and wool-weavers, lots of them from the UK, were slogans on cozy jumpers and sweatshirts. Was this Dries taking a stand against Brexit, and the difficulty he’d have in exporting these textiles for his fabulous fashions? Maybe – if so, a brilliant collection like this was a superb way to sound your dissent. Dries tailored lots of those fine British fabrics into knock-out bold-shoulder suits and coats that seemed a defining silhouette for next silhouette. Sure, other people have done them this season – but Dries has done them season after season. And few have done them as well as him then, or now. If you’re investing in one, how about one of these. They’re bound to come back into style – after all, they just did…
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans
