Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Many of this week's Paris collections have taken to the catwalk with one foot firmly in the past, but none have done vintage style with quite the same wearable ease as Dries Van Noten. Last night the 45-year-old Belgian designer took the Bloomsbury Set of the Twenties as a starting point and put together a beautiful collection that made the Virginia Woolf look seem thoroughly modern.

Draping the vast space of the Left Bank's Ecole Des Beaux Arts in chocolate brown velvet curtains, Van Noten sent out one of his best collections to date to a soundtrack of slushy love songs. The models - led by British girls Erin O'Connor and Stella Tennant - with unruly bobbed hairstyles and glitter eye make-up, stepped out in an artful mix of richly coloured tweed coats, rose print silk dresses, devoree velvet kimonos, calf-length skirts, cropped trousers and chunky knit cardigans in soft, washed-out shades lit up by the occasional burst of bright apple green. And the odd touch of oriental embroidery, shimmery beading or delicate floral applique added a romantic appeal to even the simplest of his designs.

A regular fixture on the Paris catwalk schedule, Dries Van Noten has honed his delicate Bohemian look to perfection - a look that sells in huge quantities to his army of devoted fans.

He may have found his design niche, but Van Noten still manages to surprise and delight with his shows each season. At the show's finale, the curtains were pulled back to reveal a bank of hundreds of mirrored balls that lit the audience with a thousand dancing spots of light.