Paris Fashion Week: With ethnic-looking prints, Dries Van Noten returns to his roots

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One could easily get the impression, from all the bubble skirted cocktail frocks and lacy lingerie looks on the runways this season, that most women don’t get out of bed until the sun goes down.

Luckily, there are a few designers who can be counted on for interesting day wear, including Belgian phenom Dries Van Noten, who started the craze for mixing ethnic-looking prints several years ago, and has now returned to it.

Coats, boxy jackets and slim pants in Ikat prints, zigzag and mosaic-like jacquards, mixed it up on the runway with new classics, such as spectator pumps reinterpreted with a green heel, pearl necklaces worn in multiples with exotic-looking jeweled clasps, and the perfect pair of loose-fit khaki drawstring pants.

Silk dresses in sumptuous colors and mixed paisley prints came in easy wrap front styles, or were draped and tied with the ends left trailing behind. And those cuffed, Ikat print shorts that tied at one side might have been the most refined shorts of the season.

-- Booth Moore

Photos: Dries Van Noten’s spring-summer 2010 runway

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Dries Van Noten’s Spring-Summer 2010 runway. All photo credits: Peter Stigter & Jonas Gustavsson / For The Times