Paris fashion week: models wear items from Dries Van Noten's ready-to-wear spring/summer 2014 collection. Photograph: Christophe Ena/AP
Fashion[1] 's higher profile in popular culture has in turn had an impact on the exhibitions[2] favoured by museums. Shows such as the McQueen blockbuster at New York's Met have attracted record audiences thanks to growing public interest in fashion.
The latest designer to be awarded the honour of a museum show is Dries Van Noten, who created the collection shown on his Paris catwalk while preparing for an exhibition about his design and inspiration for the city's Les Arts Decoratifs next year.
The show will honour the under-the-radar influence of a designer who brings a matchless taste level to the process of mixing influences – feminine with masculine, modern with traditional – which goes into putting together any outfit.
After a show which mixed crisp poplin with gold lame, snake print accordion pleats and heavily ethnic carpet bags, Van Noten said he had wanted "to take very feminine elements and see how far I could push them, that they would still be believable garments for modern women, strong women to wear".
The venue for the Dries Van Noten show was a vast warehouse with one wall veiled by a zig zag of Venetian-slatted screens painted in lustrous gold.
To accompany a show which the designer billed as "brittle yet tenacious" and "culturally informed", Colin Greenwood of Radiohead, wearing what appeared to be "dad jeans", played the bass guitar in the middle of the space, while the models stalked past in Japanese-style cork flatforms, or chunky sandals in cardinal red leather.
The musical accompaniment was a very Dries Van Noten touch: eccentric but not silly, notable rather than fancy, it brought a masculine element into the very feminine space of a catwalk awash with Fortuny pleats and silk.
Tamara Mellon has form as a more obvious gamechanger. As co-founder of Jimmy Choo, she helped transform the high-heeled shoe into a universal emoticon for glamour. After selling her stake in the company for a reported $135m (£84m), she is launching what she believes to be an equally agenda-setting brand at Paris fashion week[3] .
The Tamara Mellon brand intends to steal a march on her luxury competitors by challenging an illogical retail timetable which, she believes, is confusing and offputting to shoppers. A decade of racing to beat competitors to first deliveries, and to provide novelty, has resulted in the shopfloor being out of kilter with the weather, with coats on sale in July and summer shorts in January. "Our January/February collection will sell the clothes you want to wear in those months", she said. "I don't believe women want to buy sundresses in January".
Photograph: Christophe Ena/AP
References
- ^ More from guardian.co.uk on Fashion (www.theguardian.com)
- ^ More from guardian.co.uk on Exhibitions (www.theguardian.com)
- ^ More from guardian.co.uk on Paris fashion week (www.theguardian.com)
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