Dries Van Noten Spring 2013 RTW

While I always try to keep an eye out for the latest Dries Van Noten collection, I don't belong to that coterie of die-hards who seem to hang on his every stitch. Indeed I've only ever gone proper fangirl for the shoes:

Even the white sneakers... Especially the white sneakers.

That said, Van Noten's status as a cult designer, now more than ever, doesn't surprise me.

Nini Nguyen 

 Hanne Gaby by Elle

Elisa Nalin by StreetPeeper

His garments are incredibly photogenic and no doubt the streetstyle revolution has been very good to Van Noten, and vice versa. Indeed, since the time of his Spring 2008 RTW collection, the Belgian designer's women's wear hasn't ceased to be perfectly in tune with the way a lot of streetstyle icons dress, and not solely because a lot of them are actually wearing his designs. To my mind it is an aesthetic of streamlined eccentricity, with the layering of jarring prints and colours producing a surprisingly digestible prettiness.

And as for Van Noten's Spring 2013 Ready To Wear collection - well, it's really something else.

Obviously this isn't the first time plaid has had a brush with glamour. Duh:

 Elizabeth Hawes, 1940

 Jacques Fath, 1949-50

Vivienne Westwood, Anglomania Autumn/ Winter 1994

But it is the first time I've seen grunge plaid (and it is the styling and cut of the garments that suggest such an antecedent) re-imagined with such delicacy.

The most thoughtful grunge collection I've ever seen and it didn't come from Marc Jacobs. Ha!

Tim Blanks' style.com review is unsurprisingly excellent on the subject, but for one odd line -

"...though Van Noten nixed any literal inspirations, he did acknowledge that the shoes were a little bit Courtney Love."

Puhlease. Look at these sunnies and tell me if you think of anyone but Mr Love.