SIMONS UNDERWEAR FALL 2012

DIEGO MIGUEL  (WILHELMINA)

SIMONS UNDERWEAR FALL 2012

Z ZEGNA SPRING 2012 MENSWEAR

Alessandro Sartori, the man whose name was made for a career in menswear, must have felt the love as his last collection for Z Zegna got a special send-off yesterday. Gildo Zegna embraced him while the audience clapped and cheered.

The designer’s time at Z Zegna produced some of Milan’s oddest, edgiest menswear, and he saw himself out with a collection that did him proud. His vision for the brand was always a touch eccentric. (The affection for tail coats, for instance, revisited one last time in the finale here.)

There was something bold, almost cinematic about the way he exaggerated proportions. The broad-shouldered blouson with the wide-ribbed waistband had a superheroic slant. The baggy trousers that are practically his signature piece could have stepped out of a film noir.

Sartori called his collection My Abstract Sunday, so that might be why the sky blue and sunshine yellow; the blurry, painterly checks; the swingy A-line peacoat, as voluminous as a smock, suggested an artist’s day of rest. But that was ultimately less interesting than Sartori’s fascination with the technicalities of his job, which was, after all, the thing that made him so compatible with Zegna in the first place. You could stare at his fabrics and still not be absolutely sure what you were looking at, so glazed and rubberized and dyed and «vitrified» (that’s a good one) were they. 

The construction was also artful, illuminated with little details that demanded a double take: the white top-stitching on a navy safari suit, the white shirt collar on a mac, the sky blue trim on one lapel of a gray jacket. Sartori now takes his point of view to Berluti, where he has a blank slate to build a business. But Z Zegna will linger as an inspiring memory.

PERRY ELLIS SPRING 2012 MENSWEAR

SEAN O’PRY (VNY) 

PERRY ELLIS SPRING 2012

Remember when the only men who wore capris were stylish Euros? Well, these days American guys are a lot more style-savvy. «I knew I was taking a risk with the capris,»Perry Ellis‘ creative director, John Crocco, said post-show. «But we had a few capri options for men in stores and they were selling really well, so I thought, Why not?» 

FRANCISCO LACHOWSKI (FORD)  

Cut cleanly in sand and white linen and ending a few inches below the knee, they were a nice companion to the salmon, mustardy ocher, and periwinkle jackets and knits. The colors were inspired by his recent travels to the Painted Desert in Arizona. «It’s about the traveler, the road trip meets safari,» Crocco explained.

SEAN HARJU (SOUL ARTIST)  

With plenty of linen, cotton, and an intriguing chintz-linen blend, plus roomy uncomplicated cuts, there was a pleasant, airy feel to the collection. Crocco added some approachable tailoring touches, such as suit trousers that hit at the ankle and a handsome white-on-white seersucker sport coat.

DAVID AGBODJI (REQUEST)  

When he did venture deeper into trends—a couple of color-blocked sweaters might look cheekily right on a svelte downtowner, but you could see the potential for disaster in the wrong hands—it was with a likable, gentle nudge most shoppers will likely respond to.

ALEXIS MABILE SPRING 2012 MENSWEAR

Fashion shows are occasionally obscure in their reasoning and impenetrable in their semiotics, but give Alexis Mabille credit: The opening tableau of his Spring show told you everything you needed to know. Four models in rolled white cargo pants, espadrilles, and printed tees stood side by side.

The first’s top read «ALEXIS M’HABILLE» (that’s «Alexis dresses me,» the verb pronounced just like his surname). The second: «ALEXIS ME DESHABILLE» («Alexis undresses me»). And with that, the models whipped off shirts and dropped trou. Voila: Mabille’s new underwear collection, created in collaboration with the skivvies label Hom.

Briefs are big business (just ask Calvin), so hard to blame Mabille for branching out. Backstage, he noted that their entry-level price point would open up his brand to an entirely new clientele. He mentioned that with his clothes—interior and exterior—he’s always been interested in the inner workings and structures as much as the outer shows. «I wanted to go inside,» he said.

The collection’s nominal theme was bain de soleil—»sunbath»—which accounts a bit for the disrobing (in some cases, shedding actual robes). Summer by the sea called for swimwear in addition to underwear; lightweight suiting pieces, a few with a brocade chain pattern snaking up the legs and around the waists; and numerous twists and turns on marinièrestripes, from those peeking out from the lapels of a gray jersey peacoat to others adorning a cotton-knit poncho.

 

BALMAIN SPRING 2012 MENSWEAR

The house of Balmain is in new hands, but fans of Christophe Decarnin’s moto-roué look won’t be disappointed by the first collection from his former assistant Olivier Rousteing. Whether Rousteing stages a farther departure from his boss’ example in women’s remains to be seen, but for menswear, he hewed close. Trim tux jackets (slightly longer than usual), paneled biker jeans, and leather jackets will always have a place here. New this season is a range of pieces in pastel: tees, scarves, and even those biker jeans now come in ice cream colors (lemon, mint, and orange), mottled to look sun-bleached. Also new: swimwear, printed denim (in an abstract feather pattern that will also figure in the women’s Resort collection), and a boxy new jacket shape, shorter and shorn of its lapels.

But all in all, this was a continuation, not a break. Maybe you could see the student stepping away from the teacher in the way he snipped off sleeves from jackets (tuxedo and denim), open-weave knits, and polos. Then again, maybe that’s just a summertime concession; even the cool Balmain homme can get hot. The luxe, at least, remained ever apparent; a motorcycle vest in full python saw to that. So did a shawl-collared jacket in croc, for the man who has everything but his own game preserve.

GIORGIO ARMANI SPRING 2012

Prints are a big story for next Spring’s menswear, but when Giorgio Armani titled his new collection Printwear, it was never going to mean a world of flowers or ikat or any of the other ideas that have already presented themselves for 2012. Subtle geometry was Armani’s concession to the coming trend, like the check on a sweater that quietly dissolved into ombré, or the zigzags and houndstooths fading out on a cotton shirt and pants so light they were almost gauzy.

Lightness is Armani’s current obsession, as we learned at Emporio the other day. But if that collection was pared to the point of plainness, this one showed why Armani is Uomo Numero Uno. A dove gray cardigan jacket swathing a sweater and pants was silvery and serene, but it’s scarcely new in the Armani vocabulary. There was, however, something going on with the jackets, with the way the fabrics molded smoothly across the shoulders, that you sensed rather than saw. Impossible to define. Maybe that’s exactly what it was—more definition without more structure. Masterful.

Elsewhere, Armani’s shifts in silhouettes were easier to nail. There was a slight flare to a double-breasted jacket. Generously cut trousers either tapered to the ankle, where they buttoned for a pegged effect, or were nipped at the knee to form a soft jodhpur shape. That’s how Armani manages to alter perceptions of the most basic components of a man’s wardrobe. Why you would be seduced by nipped-at-the-knee pants is a story for another time, but Armani is likely the only designer of his stature who could interest you in a pair.

Same with his shoes. The espadrille is the definitive holiday footwear of the leisured classes, but Armani took it into the city, slipping a rope sole under a brogue or a boat shoe. Maybe not as playfully extreme as Miuccia Prada’s potted history of the sole for the Spring just finished, but Armani’s mutant footwear probably has a better chance of insinuating itself into boardrooms. And where the shoe leads, the soul follows.

V

SIMON NESSMAN (I LOVE)

RIVER VIPERI IN ESSENTIAL HOMME MAY/JUNE 2011

ESSENTIAL HOMME MAYO / JUNIO 2011

«BOY  OF SUMMER»

RIVER VIPERI (SOUL ARTIST)

FOTOS DE AP KIM Y TERRY LU

RIVER VIPERI IN BEST SUMMER SWIMWEAR

ELIE TAHARI FALL 2011 MENSWEAR

Alert the Commander in Chief: There’s been a military leak. Thankfully, it’s mostly of blankets. The iconic stripe covers favored by the armed forces have been exerting a strong influence on menswear of late. Styles inspired by them turned up at Iceberg, at Tommy Hilfiger, and again this week at Elie Tahari. The label’s creative director, Kobi Halperin, at least, has a better claim on the style than most. «I was in the military,» he explained during a presentation at the Tahari showroom. «It’s nice to be turning a very dusty and unpleasant experience into the beautiful glamour of fashion.»

Military influence in menswear is nothing new, but here it was managed ably. In a palette of tobacco, charcoal, black, and gray, tailored takes on army gear predominated. Stripe details, often in mixed materials, appeared on vests, work shirts, jackets, and as tuxedo piping on flat-front, slightly tapered pants. Outerwear is one of Tahari’s strongest men’s categories for sales, and two car coats—one in that dusty tobacco, with a contrast collar, another in black, with contrast leather sleeves—were worth saluting.

BUCKLER FALL 2011

Give him points for showmanship: For his Fall 2011 presentation, Andrew Buckler shut down an entire block of Soho and walked his darkly dressed boys through the street. (Apparently, getting approval is a long, rather than difficult, bureaucratic process.) The setting was important, Buckler said after the show, because of the theme of the season: the artists «using the streets as their medium to communicate messages.»

No more of the 1930’s German students who’d occupied him for Spring, in other words. And none the worse for that, really. The mostly somber color scheme put Buckler way afield of many of his compatriots in menswear this season, but basic black isn’t bad business. Neither is repeating what’s worked before—specifically, a long, layered silhouette, anchored by narrow pants, some skinny through the leg; others with more volume up top before tapering around the knee. They came topped with long, cabled cardigans or tailored jackets that ranged from the casual cotton slub to a few more refined tux options in wool gabardine.

The clearest hint of any street-art style was in the blast of highlighter yellow that came near the end, in paneled jeans and a blazing parka. And like street art, they had an aggressive insistence—even a welcome sort of vulgarity—that the well-behaved rest seemed to lack.

BILLY REID FALL 2011

When we last left Billy Reid a season ago, the Florence, Alabama-based designer had scooped up the GQ/CFDA Best New Menswear Designer in America award and was short-listed for the CFDA/VogueFashion Fund prize. Now he’s taken that one, too (and in a competitive field, which included Prabal Gurung, Altuzarra, and other big names). Last season, Reid showed in a bustling room on the eighth floor of Milk Studios. This time it was the penthouse. Hard not to read a little something into that.

The man’s star is on the rise, and he knows he’s got more eyes on him than ever before. Make no mistake: He didn’t disappoint. The menswear on show was classic Reid: masculine suiting mixed with more workmanly pieces, cut on the slightly looser side—a little rope in the shoulder and a slight boot-cut to the pants. Reid’s fabrics are those of traditional menswear: wool and tweed, camel hair and moleskin, cotton and cord. He’s not above a luscious (if subtle) flourish, like a formal dinner jacket in un-dyed velvet, but his aesthetic is masculine and untrendy. Like the designer himself, it’s tried-and-true.

Reid did himself a service by refining the Southern twang of his show, which always resided as much in the spirit and the staging of his work as in the clothes themselves. That even extended to the set, pared down this season from the mud-and-all Alabama haul-in antique doors and weathered floorboards he used to use. Here, the sparer environment refocused attention on the clothes (including, for the first time in a Reid presentation, a few women’s looks, which had a slinky appeal of their own).

The one potential quibble is that the offering might have been a bit too tried-and-true; this wasn’t a season marked by change. But perhaps that’s just how Reid needs it to be right now, given that plenty of the visitors dropping in are playing catch-up to his work. (The South, where he has several stores, has been on the bandwagon for years.) Reid showed the best of what he does tonight. But here’s the tricky thing about the spotlight: Next season, people will be clamoring to see the next twist in the tale.