Spring Trends

When you move to New York, your wardrobe slowly but surely morphs into gradations of black and gray. Something about the city and its business orientation dictates that everyone looks like they’ve just come back from a funeral. This spring, however, is all about bright colors.

At Mercedez-Benz fashion week in New York, designers showed their Fall 2008 collections and the message was unmistakable: color and lightness is back in style. As it always seems to go, women’s trends end up seeping into men’s fashion and the two are never truly far apart. In a similar vein, the fact that fashion is always two seasons ahead has at least a subconscious impact on what we end up wearing now. Though we are still technically in Fall/Winter 2007, the trends of Fall/Winter 2008 are already going to begin changing the paradigm of what we think is stylish and current.

One of my favorite looks for this spring that is both young and ironic is wearing a bright, almost neon anorak under a blazer with the sleeves pushed up. It is reminiscent of Prada spring/summer 2007, indicating that it might have taken until now to catch on.

Another great trend this spring is tech-fabric, light puffer vests over shirts or even contemporary sweaters. Vests in general are versatile items, perfect for the fifty to sixty degrees “in-between” weather, but this season really amps up the style with bold and bright monochromatic tones that add vivacity to a drab wardrobe.

Other ways of bringing back color into the wardrobe are as simple as going out and buying a few pairs of inexpensive oxford shirts. Uniqlo, as always, has stylish shirts that fit the bill without leaving you unable to pay yours at the end of the month. Also if you are in New York, the highly reputed shirt retailer Seize sur Vingt is having a sample sale this week with great markdowns. Like it or not, button-down colors are back in style and don’t even look bad when combined with other colorful elements. They provide a Hamptons-style preppyness that is always popular during the summer.

Also still trendy this spring is white jeans, which can go from sophisticated with a pair of black dress boots and shirt to beach casual with a pair of flip-flops and t-shirt.

If at last though you are absolutely beholden to the old black and gray, it appears that stripes are in for spring and so injecting a little irony into your outfit might just do you good.

Bookmark, Share or Email this article   •  Leave a Comment

City Boy Style Rocks

It’s happened again. Rogue trading has hit the headlines. Only this time, instead of sultry Singapore, patrician Paris is the financial crime scene and there is something curiously apropos about that. Just when people had started, once more, to write off city boys as boring, avaricious creeps, up pops one of the bad-boy ‘rock stars’ in one of the world’s most stylish capitals having bled his employing investment bank SocGen of a whopping $7 billion. Forget high-stakes poker, forget trashing hotel rooms and mind-bending narcotic experimentation. Taking thousands of millions, squandering them and then elegantly covering the trail is the way to rock and roll and it has put the city boys back in the spotlight.

With a nervy start to the financial year, people were already beginning to turn their lenses on the unassuming bean-counters in the towers of glass and steel but this news has really set the pulses going. No one romanticises or fantasises about the striped-shirt brigade who spend their days with screens and phones; they are the antithesis of romantic figures, merely slaves to King Midas who occasionally flash their inner vulgarity with ostentatious consumption and tasteless over-tipping. Their working lives are chronicled anonymously in the salmon-print of the Financial Times consistently referred to in herd-like terms, avoiding reference to any individuality, and we are led to believe they are merely miserable souls whose Damoclean mistake was to follow the road to riches rather than honest worth.

A lot of this is, of course, drivel. Yes, these chaps are driven by money, but find me one Hollywood egotist willing to accept the minimum wage for their work. They aren’t exactly long-haired poets or suffering artists of great talent, but they take huge risks and not merely to double-line their own pockets. They also work, for better or worse, pretty damn hard to make money and they are necessary in this zero-sum world. Lastly, their salaries, often criticised for being simply too large by point-scoring neo-liberal politicians, are in fact proportionate to their performances and are taxed like every other sum of legitimate money.

One other thing, which is likely to be scoffed at, is an observation of mine that in fact, a lot of city boys have the style nous that other professionals lack. The lawyer is smart, but lacking in chutzpah. The doctor is generally over-casual and unremarkable. The city boy is a Wall Street tiger: he has stripes and he will bally well show them.

However, the hard, mathematical types who hoard pictures of their families on their desk, next to their novelty chess-boards, resent this city boy tag, so I isolate them from my spoons of praise. They are the dry, tee totalling mail-order catalogue side of the city to whom style is about as important as moon exploration to a budgerigar. The true city boy sweeps in wearing pinstripes leaning towards the muted sartorial classicism of Jermyn Street in contrast to the advertising titan in Soho, clothed in Duchamp and Richard James. He wears shirts and ties with ease and pride, and even bothers to seek advice in Thomas Pink from the style consultants for counsel on combinations. At his side swings a magnificent Malacca umbrella from James Smith.

Though dressing down has been the recent form for vast swathes of city folk, the indication is that some of the British are standing firm. A stockbroking friend of mine is a strong believer in the city uniform and refers to the attire of the relaxed New Yorkers, quite abruptly as ‘that casual crap’. Whereas casual financial-scientists from Wall Street see themselves as belonging to the distinctly un-yuppy Pixar generation, the stalwarts of the Square Mile stand proud with the dignified and unapologetic air of George W. Banks. The markets can go where they like; sartorial stoicism is to be saluted.

Bookmark, Share or Email this article   •  Leave a Comment

Fall/Winter 2008 Milan and Paris Highlights

As the curtain for the men’s shows in Paris and Milan has fallen once again, there is left in its wake hundreds of outfits that compared against the backdrop of current fashion, will play a large role in the determination of new trends.  This year’s collections were in some cases an about-face on current trends and an elaboration in other instances.  Though only time can tell which fashions will make the transition from runway to everyday, there were clearly some standout pieces in a sea of seemingly endless fabric.

Designers hit the brakes on the ‘slim’ trend and reversed direction in creating a bigger, wider silhouette.  Baggy and flowing pants in the style of 30’s ‘zoot suits’ were present in nearly every show, even at Dior Homme, which would have been an anathema only a few years earlier under the reign of Hedi Slimane.  While these ‘Aladdin’ inspired pants will not likely achieve any popularity outside of the Euro-hipster and Face hunter demographic, it is an important indicator that the fashion world has tired of narrow cuts for the moment and it may also be a sign of the impending return of pleated pants to stylishness.

In more manageable proportions, flowing pants can actually be quite stylish, such as this pair from Emanuel Ungaro, though they are ultimately unlikely to gain wide acceptance. To wear roomier pants and not look like Jim Carry from “The Mask,” it is best to wear a modern, fitted jacket rather than something equally bulbous.  Because of their high fashion status, pants of this style are likely to draw raised-eyebrows in the street.

Interestingly, or party due to baggy pants’ dependence on them, tops did not follow the super-sizing trend, instead many were cropped and revamped in this manner.  Suit jackets were both shorter and more fitted than had been seen in previous years.  This was similarly the case with the classic tuxedo, which was transformed from its traditional form to a more avant-garde appearance.

One trend that I predict will be particularly successful was a certain ‘wild west’ look at Paul Smith, evoked by earthy colors and a distinctly classic cut.  A higher lapel will likely be increasingly desired after a seemingly long period of fashion hibernation.  While plaids were still ruefully popular with many designers, they seemed toned down to a degree, making them more palatable.  Such was the effect of this Rykiel Homme suit (top right), which flawlessly combined an edgy fabric with a rakishly modern cut to create a Rock ’n’ roll look.

Possibly my favorite look of the season was from Raf Simons.  This pairing of a turtleneck and trousers is so sophisticated and chic in its simplicity that it exudes a timelessness that I look for in dressing. The fit of the pants is perfect and they serve well to visually emphasize the difference between fashion and style.  While zoot pants may be fashionable today, they are the kind of dated tem that will have you asking yourself what you were thinking when looking back on it ten years into the future.

Bookmark, Share or Email this article   •  Leave a Comment

Dolce and Gabbana Fall/Winter 2008: Trend Barometer

While some fashion shows are often more a display of pure fantasy and artistic creativity than realistic wear, Dolce and Gabbana’s collections are often as much an indicator of current fashion trends as they are an influence on future ones.

This collection displayed a marked departure from last year’s, where the emphasis was on slim fitting, structured pieces set in futuristic metallics that created a polished, avant-garde look. If Fall 2007 was about an urban cosmonaut, then 2008 seemed almost otherworldly with the strangest pairings of hugely oversized sweaters and baggy sweat pants, punctuated by some imposing shearling pieces that looked like they were stolen from Daniel Boone’s log cabin.

Though there seemed to be in total less realistically marketable pieces than past shows, it is still possible to distill the wearable elements that will likely be present both in runway knock-off retailers and on the street.

Gucci introduced bulky, over-sized sweaters this season but the trend has seemingly pervaded many designers’ collections and the swinging pendulum of fashion has decided that what was once simply sloppy is now a fashion statement. The way to make an over-sized sweater work without looking like a homeless person is to wear it as part of a layered outfit. Wearing a cropped jacket will provide needed structure over top of a longer sweater and can create a high fashion look.

In keeping with the super-sizing trend, trousers also have moved away from slim fitting to a looser, more classic cut. Also back on the rise are single pleated pants after a long dominance of flat front pants. Dolce and Gabbana does an interesting job with this look by contrasting a fitted suit jacket over the relaxed-fit pants. This may be a style to emulate come next fall, as it offers a good halfway point between the two ends of the spectrum.

Toward the end of the show, Dolce and Gabbana showed their more ‘bread and butter’ designs: high design, modern suits that reflected the currents trends in fashion. Peak lapels, besides being highly lauded by men’s fashion gurus, have been an increasingly present feature on European suits. Shawl collars as have recently become stylish once again on tuxedos and are now slowly become a fashionable option for suits. The double-breasted suit seemed to have enjoyed a ‘come-back,’ only to be quickly forgotten after the popularity of the three-piece suit. Whereas the problem with double-breasted suits is that they can sometimes appear stodgy, the high-sheen fabric used here gives it an interesting update.

Bookmark, Share or Email this article   •  Leave a Comment

An Exercise in Etro

Following the last post on Italian house Etro, here is some pictorial analysis of my fascination.

As much as Etro’s originality and quality can inspire, it is often the catwalk combinations that galvanise me. Take the first image above – a pale grey suit with purple waistcoat and coordinating tie, shirt, handkerchief. Now, as a whole this is too much. Some people might be able to get away with it – perhaps Italian eccentrics who happen to be heir to an automobile fortune. I can’t.

But like much that is thrown down the runway, it is not supposed to be copied. It is supposed to inspire. I have a sweater in a dark purple from Reiss. Up till now I have only worn it with navy suits or jackets. Perhaps I will try it with a pale grey – even brown, which this suit seems to tend towards.

Equally, I would have thought the colour too dark to be worn with brown shoes; yet it works well here. And the twist of the yellow belt: perhaps too much, but it does remind me of the contrasting colours (one primary colour’s contrast is the mix of the other two – so, yellow’s is purple).

The handkerchief is too showy and I don’t like the pattern. I don’t particularly like the tie or shirt either, certainly not together. But a similar suit tone with a purple sweater, perhaps over a blue-and-white striped shirt? That could work. And yellow would be good as an accent, in a handkerchief or even a belt as here.

The image and its colours inspire in a way that is rare in menswear.

The second image above points out how well rusty reds work with brown, though I’d never go for that tie or shirt.

The third is all about combinations of pattern. The suit, sweater, shirt, tie and handkerchief all have different patterns. But they work because the wide stripes of the sweater (and its strong outline) separate the suit and shirt/tie. Equally, the tie and shirt are a similar enough density of pattern to fit well together and to slip into the background. The colours (except for that yellow belt again) are not that extraordinary, but the patterns take it to another level. I wouldn’t wear it all, but it inspires.

The next image shows how well bright colours can go together if they are balanced (either the tie or the trousers on their own would stand out too much).

The penultimate combination demonstrates balancing the strong pattern of a suit with plain, background colours elsewhere.

And the yellow sweater just seems to work here. Perhaps it’s the implied yellow in the green-tinge trousers and vest, I’m not sure.

During this same season, Fall 2007, Calvin Klein was displaying grey tonic suits, with the occasional bright yellow. Armani had quilted vests and collarless shirts, but was basically black and blue. Both seem not only dull but unsophisticated compared to the density of colour at an Etro show.

Have a flick through the previous few years’ Fall collections at Etro. Try and ignore 2007’s floppy yellow hat. The rest might just inspire you.

Bookmark, Share or Email this article   •  Leave a Comment