Julian Klausner threw down a gauntlet — in butter-soft caramel leather, with a matching clutch bag to boot — about who is the most daring and nimble colorist in menswear.
His spring collection for Dries Van Noten was a treat for the eyes, opening with an array of peachy neutrals and cycling through the spice rack, sunsets and sunrises, the water spectrum, and all the lovely shades you might find on a forest floor, or up in the canopy.
All those powdery hues — sometimes solid, sometimes gradient and sometimes rendered in smudged botanical prints — were splashed on the filmiest, breeziest of clothes, adding up to one of the lightest and most unapologetically feminine collections so far this Paris season.
During a preview, Klausner cited a wish “for something light, something delicate,” and “Afternoon of a Faun,” a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé dating from 1867, fed that narrative: “It tells the story of a fawn, half-man, half-animal, a kind of dream-like creature who wakes up after a nap in a forest, and he is in a haze.”
Pummeled by 100-degree temperatures in Paris, and airless venues like the Tennis Club of Paris, where Klausner laid out a vast chip-board runway, the fashion pack gets haze.
And it’s also warming up to the lightweight, languid dressing that is gathering steam this European season.
Klausner employed acetates, viscose, washed silks, chiffon, watery nylons and nearly sheer, stocking-weight knits “to keep this kind of very floaty feeling.”
Runny fabrics gave cargo pants a sensual flutter, and parkas a drifting, flyaway effect. Dropped shoulder constructions and languid sleeves heightened the sense of ease and carefreeness, as did a bevy of silky short shorts.
At times, the designer might have dipped a tad too deep into lingerie as a well of inspiration, but his tonal layering was nonpareil, and usually won you over.
This was Klausner’s third show as creative director of the Antwerp-based house, and he’s steering it sure-handedly, with interesting doses of fantasy and whimsy.
