Paris Fashion Week Tuesday: Courrèges and Dries Van Noten

Two young, but experienced designers – Nicolas Di Felice at Courrèges and Julien Klausner at Dries Van Noten – were welcome reminders of how to create distinctive fashion for house founded by revolutionary creators. Both have the same alma mater – La Cambre in Brussels.

Courrèges: Blinded by the Sun

The best designer in fashion these days, at least when it comes to self-editing, is Nicolas Di Felice, whose latest show for Courrèges was a model lesson in precision, punch and polish.

Once again, Di Felice created a bright white set – a perfect circle, with rings of circular benches inside a 19th-century wrought iron market. But then went into overdrive with uber-bright overhead lighting, worthy of an exam in the “Squid Game”. So bright, Courrèges sent out natty pairs of all-black sunglasses with each invitation to provide protection.
 
“I was thinking of blinded by the sun in the sense what is true and what is fake. Too much information. It’s all a bit overwhelming. That’s where I started,” said Nicolas, seconds before Kering chairman François-Henri Pinault, whose empire includes Courrèges, embraced him briefly with a huge smile.

His opening looks were cold in icy blue, and his silhouettes tight, the models faces veiled to block out the sun. Before gradually loosening up and making most of the collection in natural fabrics, along with lean-and-mean leathers. So even if the line was neat and strict, the clothes looked comfortable.
 
Playing on André Courrèges’ DNA, especially his ’60s ideas, but courageously. Like taking André’s signature miniature belts and making several cocktails ingeniously out of scores of tiny belts. 
 
Flat shoes, glove-like sling-backs or transparent boots all had great zest, as did the soundtrack. Churning galactic funk co-composed by Nicolas and Erwan Sene, interspersed with a French voice telling you the temperature of the hour. Only a French female accent can make that sounds sexy.
 

Ending with a series of sun shield oblong shapes, taken from cars, but used in futuristic dresses. Futurism, which André Courrèges invented in fashion, can often look hackneyed today. But Di Felice always manages to give it optimism and belief, which the future that it should ideally represent.
 
In the half-decade since he joined Courrèges in 2020 from Louis Vuitton, Di Felice has turned its show into one of the hottest half-dozen in fashion. Thousands of fans scream and chant his guests into each show.  
 
Courrèges may not be a giant house, but it is the hottest today within the Kering/Artemis luxury empire. And the biggest single reasons for that is Di Felice. And a management that is smart enough to let him do what he wants.
 

Dries Van Noten: Tried and tested

One almost felt one was in Scandinavia at the latest show of Dries Van Noten. So similar were the prints to Verner Panton’s designs of the 1970s. Or, indeed, to Marimekko colors of the past decade.

See fashion show

Not that they didn’t look easy on the eye, yet somehow very familiar. Otherwise, this was a polished performance by designer Julian Klausner. His latest women’s collection for the house blended street style, rich fabrics and ladylike twists: très Dries Van Noten in other words.
 
Staged inside a completely unadorned art space in the Palais de Tokyo, except for 400 Louis XVI chairs and the guests. All focused on the clothes, led out by quite a few little jackets, which turned out to be inspired by surfer silhouettes and wetsuit shapes – though with added small pleats, ruffles and color. Made in light, airy colors – lime, lichen, pale gray or canary yellow – all had charm.
 
“Joyful, optimistic… Like the ’60s was,” argued Klausner – an ex-Maison Margiela staffer – in a group chat post-show. Finishing shoes, sleeves, collars, T-shirts with strass and crystals, suggesting the shimmering light of the sea.
 

See fashion show

Respecting Dries rich history as a tailor, Julien cut some great nobleman’s coats – soaring collars, angled pockets and majestic proportions. Making them in broken disk or tropical leaf prints, very posh Panton. And once again a little too familiar.
 
Coming after his stellar menswear collection in June, this all felt like a slight step back. 
 
But still highly competent. Dries, in effect, is in very safe hands.