During an Indian summer afternoon in Paris that carried a fresh, crisp undercurrent, Dries Van Noten presented his summer 2019 collection in a splash of natural light under the grand canopy of Palais de Tokyo.

Optic white silhouettes of ladybirds with real feather hairdos revealed a gangling waist heighten by a squarish padded shoulder—yet the whole hangs together with relaxed looseness. Diagonal graphic stripes and photographic patterns and rays of bright neon colors completed a tableau which carried a minimal approach to formal design with a play of structured drapes and cuts.

There is also a palpable tension with the use of materials that combine foregrounded compositions of plastic and paper, silk with hand-made pieces of embroidery, and original paintings on garments. This full and honest confusion of feelings was accompanied by the heartbeats of the remix “Moan” by the Danish electronic multi-instrumentalist Trentemøller.

Van Noten’s next realm manages to render beauty and sophisticated finesse with reminiscences of post-futuristic broken romanticism, a place where nature and machine would finally find grace and gravity in chaos and harmony.

Images © 2018 Dries Van Noten.