Dries Van Noten Fall Winter 2023 – 2024 Womenswear Collection at Paris Fashion Week

The love of clothes

The intimate, tender moments between a garment and its wearer. A decorative lining, its specialness concealed within, a secret known only to them. A coat that gently moulds to the body, a relationship that’s between just the two. Large scale gestures mixed with focus on the small details. The precious and rarefied with the raw and unrefined. Dries Van Noten womenswear Fall Winter 2023 – 2024 Collection explores the power in these contrasts.

Using elements of the past to inform a new future and how we think about clothes.

Antique fabrications revisited afresh; faded florals glimpsed beneath technical mesh, hand-drawn techniques and washed silks alongside sharp jackets and lean, precise shapes.

Modernity in a rigorous new tailoring; emphasised shoulders, narrow waists and elongated trousers with sculptural platform boots that lengthen the silhouette. A friction between the masculine and feminine; rugged coats using wools from English mills, pinstripes and herringbone, sculpted into powerful, beautifully defined shapes.

Rustic fabrics alongside delicate floral motifs. Corsetry, that most historic of feminine devices, brought into a contemporary sphere with golden embroidery.

Outer surface and hidden elements. Layering creates a sense of depth and plays with notions of conceal and reveal; a reversible coat comprising multiple folds of featherlight organza, shimmering gold jacquard on exacting tailoring. Elongated shirts with double layers of silk, the underside of a collar revealing a flash of metallic.

A celebration of artistry and the skill of craft. Hand-painted flower prints, a sheen of gold foil overlay on jackets, coats with delicate embroidery. Lace from historic French mills, using centuries-old techniques, employed in a contemporary way.

The pleasure of fabrics and the life they take on over the years; cherished, used, repaired and given new meaning for today.

Dries Van Noten womenswear Fall Winter 2023 – 2024 Collection celebrates the visceral richness of clothes themselves and the stories they tell us.