How Dries Van Noten SS15 made Paris lie down and sit still

What do you do when Fashion Week fever all gets a bit too much? If you're Dries Van Noten, you take it to the ground. In the most talked-about show finale this season, the designer simply made all his models recline on his runway – a lush tapestry that was carpeted to look like an overgrown, mossy forest floor.

For some, Van Noten's simple but stunning finale referenced the pastoral paradise of Edward Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe. Others called it a "gilded Woodstock", with hippie nymphs bedding down into the ground amidst the sound of birdsong.

But for many in the audience, it simply signalled a return to a pre-smartphone Eden; a call to forget the fashion circus and take a prelapsarian breather (and not even Kanye West's presence in the front row could distract from that). 

"In the flurry of fashion weeks we have seen a lot, snapped a lot but perhaps we haven't absorbed anything that has been profoundly significant," said Dazed writer Susie Bubble. "The beauty (of the show) was palpable and it struck you just as you thought fashion weeks have been on autopilot."

"In turn van Noten was inviting us to lie down, stay still and take it all in. Something to bear in mind as the circus rolls on until next Wednesday."

Stay tuned for our show report and backstage pictures. 

See all our latest features, interviews, and show reports from SS15, as it happens