MICHAEL BASTIAN SPRING 2015

MICHAEL BASTIAN SPRING 2015

«The Southwest is a little bit of a challenge,» said Michael Bastian at his studio in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood.

«I really wanted to avoid all the clichés—no cowboy, no poncho, no fringes. You know, how real guys in that part of the U.S. would dress, or my dream of how they would dress.» For Spring 2015, Bastian took his collection of sportswear to Arizona.

«Maybe because I grew up in Rochester, but the desert Southwest to me is exotic,» the designer said.

Clichés were mostly avoided, but not entirely. There were embroidered Western shirts, suede outerwear, and bronze feather accessories from the George Frost x Michael Bastian collaboration.

The best expression of the theme was in the dusty hues, soft, textured fabrics, and faded denim. As always with Bastian, the tailoring stood head and shoulders above the rest of the collection.

Sharp suits in a linen-blend «denim,» plaid, herringbone, and windowpane were the highlights.

All kinds of trousers were reimagined in typical Bastian fashion. Riding pants and cargos were stripped down; motocross pants were made summery in faded canvas and denim; and slim, tapered sweatpants were done in gray piqué.

Bastian’s vision for guys in the Southwest favored glamour over ruggedness.

There was something louche in the mostly unbuttoned shirts, short shorts, and, of course, the quintessential Michael Bastian racer swimsuit.

But the ease of the collection was almost too easy. The designer might have successfully avoided clichés, but all of the softening and fading seems to have removed the grit that makes the Southwest special.

JOHN VARVATOS SPRING 2014

JOHN VARVATOS SPRING 2014

John Varvatos has spent several seasons extrapolating the idea of elegance. His customers, he says, want to dress up. «They know how to dress casually,» he said after his show. He’s offering a crash course in long-legged dressiness: a tall, trim take on suiting that’s equal parts classic rocker and Regency fop. (OK, maybe 60-40.)

His jackets are elongated, three-button, and given an extra nip in at the waist by a waistcoat; his pants, narrow or boot-cut—a style now so out of general favor that it looks practically extraterrestrial. It gave you cause to consider that the high-water, ankle-baring pant length that currently enjoys near-universal dominance will, sooner or later, inevitably find its own time at an end. But probably not right now, and probably not at these hands.

In any case, Varvatos’ elegance had a slept-in crumple, its linens creased, its leathers hand-distressed, as if they’d survived weeks on the road. Which is the ultimate Varvatosian fantasy. While working on the collection, he’d been editing John Varvatos: Rock in Fashion, a compendium of rock ‘n’ roll photography, and the influence of elegant, traveling men like Bryan Ferry, David Bowie, and Jimi Hendrix was scrawled here.

The show ended with an updated bandleader’s jacket, the kind Hendrix liked, worn by a man who may be the closest doppelgänger the modeling world currently offers of Jimi himself.

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.

VIKTOR & ROLF SPRING / SUMMER 2012

Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren spoke of a «new age» mood for the Spring collection they showed today, but the new age was an old age—the seventies, the movement’s original heyday. Flapping, oversize peak lapels; flared trousers; and patchwork denims all signaled the Me Decade, one that was interpreted, you felt 40 years later, a little literally. V & R are rarely without their sartorial curveball, and today it came in mammalian form: a dolphin, who appeared knit into sweaters, printed on suit linings, and in one memorable, large-collared top, flapping quite literally off of shirting fabric, with little dorsal fins jagging straight off of the garment. The Dutch duo refer to their target man as a «sexy intellect,» so no wonder they picked the intellectual of the ocean as their totem. They were steadiest on their sea legs when Flipper brought with him some of his native water-blue tones, in contrast to the bone-and-flesh color scheme dominating the collection.

JOHN GALLIANO SPRING 2012

John Galliano went to trial on Wednesday here in Paris, where a packed courtroom sat for seven hours, listening to the designer and witnesses remember (and not remember) the now-infamous evening at La Perle. And tonight, a no-less-packed house—standing-room types stood on stairways that climbed literally to the rafters—took in the first John Galliano menswear collection without Galliano.

Big Splash-as the show was named in homage to the 1974 David Hockney doc, A Bigger Splash—took sixties London for its stomping grounds. Pop Art scenemakers provided the juice. First Peter Blake, who inspired military coats and handcrafts like Navajo knits. Then David Hockney, he of the owlish glasses and the thatch of blond, the floppy bow ties, and the color-pop socks. The impossibly beautiful Peter Schlesinger—Hockney’s model, muse, and lover—was the basis for the tanned and trunk-clad hunks that made up the undies-and-swim portion that continues to be essential to any Galliano show. And the Mayfair and Soho after-party scene was an excuse (not a bad one, either) for evening deshabille: sausage-tight satin pants snaking with silvery pin details, Le Smokings sans shirts, and so on.

The mood was a smidge more pop (soundtrack by the Kinks!) and less operatic than some of the baroque snowfall-and-sandstorm spectacles the house namesake used to stage. But the clothes were not dissimilar from seasons past. Credit for that goes to the house’s stalwart guiding spirit, Bill Gaytten, a 23-year veteran of the label (and member of the Dior design studio where, at least for the present, he will also stay). He has long been as much a part of Galliano’s brand as the man himself. And after the final two models—long-haired, mustachioed JG doppelgangers—took their turns (just as the designer used to do a full runway spin), it was Gaytten who came out to give a timid bow to an appreciative roar. Dior CEO Sidney Toledano applauded from the front row. And so the world turns.

DIRK BIKKEMBERGS SPRING 2012

DIRK BIKKEMBERGS SPRING 2012

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.

TIMO WEILAND FALL 2011

Timo Weiland and his design partner, Alan Eckstein, were inspired by the vestiges of colonial India for their latest collection. They envisioned a fictional trip that Gloria Vanderbilt and Keith Richards took there in the sixties. «This is what they looked like when they came back,» Weiland explained at the sitar-scored presentation this morning. Clothes in a second. First, a moment to imagine the doyenne and the drug-fueled rocker cavorting together in Bombay. Nowthat’s a trip.

The Indian influence was felt in the print, a tweaked image of the Himalayas at sunset, and a custom Bengal tiger jacquard, which appeared as a scalloped-hem cocktail dress and a double-breasted women’s jacket. You got a sense of subcontinental dressing in the rich, embroidered gold jacquards they used, too, and the way gold was woven through a few netlike blouses. For the men, the gist was less of India than its expatriate English residents: Weiland spoke warmly of a Prince of Wales check, which was shown as a patch-pocket blazer and a shirt—together in one look.

That’s a lot of look; more-on-more is practically a house rule at this label. But actually, Fall found Weiland and Eckstein in smartly subdued form. They’re never going to make basics, and really, there’s no reason that they should. But scaling back on some of the squall of seasons past helped let the strongest pieces shine. And when they did, they gave sparkle without the old glare.

BAND OF OUTSIDER FALL 2011

The presentations that Scott Sternberg has staged for Band of Outsider are legendary by now—there was the time he created an actual beach, replete with water and sand, for instance—so it was inevitable he’d bring a little stagecraft to his first-ever runway show. His outing today comprised all three of the lines under the Band of Outsiders umbrella—the original menswear Band, the menswear-inspired women’s line Boy, and the more feminine Girl, launched last season—and it opened with a bit of derring-do, as Band of Outsiders-clad male models rappelled from the ceiling.

That was a nod to Sternberg’s original inspiration this season, the book The Stonemasters and its images of seventies-era California rock climbers. Before the show, Sternberg said that The Stonemasters invited a more general contemplation of bygone California, land of stoner princesses and hippie communes, and then those influences pinballed around a little more, dinging Yoko Ono and Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club along the way.

TOM FORD EN LA PORTADA DE ANOTHER MAN S/S 2011

«PUTTING PEOPLE AHEAD OF YOURSELF IS A MARK OF A MODERN GENTLEMAN»

TOM FORD EN LA PORTADA DE LA REVISTA ANOTHER MAN S/S 2011

«A GENTLEMAN TODAY HAS TO WORK, PEOPLE WHO DO NOT WORK ARE SO BORING AND ARE USUALLY BORED.  YOU HAVE TO BE PASSIONATE, YOU HAVE TO BE ENGAGED AND YOU HAVE TO BE CONTRIBUTING  TO THE WORLD«

«YOU SHOULD PUT ON THE BEST VERSION OF YOURSELF WHEN YOU GO OUT IN THE WORLD BECAUSE THAT IS A SHOW OF RESPECT TO THE OTHER PEOPLE AROUND YOU»