Wunderkind Spring 2009

Wolfgang Joop is Paris' resident eccentric. He brought the zany once again for Spring, following up last season's space romp with a collection that was more grown-up, but barely less whimsical. He said his frame of reference was the architect Isamu Noguchi and pre- and postwar Japan. That explained the olive-drab, military-inspired cargo jackets and pants that he paired with multicolored rose-print blouses, and, somewhat more tangentially, a butterfly superimposed on a checked chiffon that he used for floaty, away-from-the-body dresses.