January 27, 2006

Dries Van Noten is old enough to remember Jerry Hall waving the tail of her tiger suit in the video for Bryan Ferry's Let's Stick Together, back in the days when Jerry and Ferry were rock's most woosome twosome. The glamorous spirit of that era animated his new collection, which he set to the tune of a remarkable mash-up of Ferry's music by 2manydjs. "Now that their fathers and grandfathers have taken over sportswear, young men have a desire to dress," Van Noten said backstage.

The designer based his clothes on three principles—elegance, tradition, proportion—adding a shot of Ferry's own style for good measure. The coats, cut big and broad-shouldered (the best one flaring in the back), and the slightly boxy suits had a strong whiff of the singer's forties-via-the-seventies matinee idol presence. There was a suggestion of bespoke in the peak of a jacket shoulder, and a dandy nonchalance in buckled croc shoes worn sockless.

Warming things up was a zooful of exotic prints. The leopard print looked best on a raincoat and a faded blouson (worn over a shot silk waistcoat in old gold). When it showed up as a fake-fur jacket, it simply screeched for the Roxy Music reunion that is imminent. But so did the gold snakeskin shoes. And unrepentant glam rockers will run, not walk, to snare the python-print suit. Given the measured tenor of Dries' collections in the past, the fabulosity of this one was about as surreal as the canopy of hundreds of umbrellas under which it took place.

— Tim Blanks