GANT BY MICHAEL BASTIAN SPRING 2012 MENSWEAR

DAVID AXELL (CLICK)

Hawaii, not Manhattan, is officially the island of New York fashion week. All right, perhaps not officially, but it’s above and beyond the preferred destination this collection season. Add Michael Bastian to the luau-loving bunch, even though he has never actually visited the state. «What I know of Hawaii is from watching the Brady Bunch shows from the seventies,» the designer said at his Gantpresentation. «But sometimes your idea of something can be even better than the real thing.» Bastian’s dream combination of Hawaiian fever and seventies love translated into a hippie-dippie version of all-American classics. 

Even the models were cast with Marcia and Greg in mind. «This collection is about being happy and fun,» Bastian said, grinning ear to ear. «It’s about what you can throw into your bag for a summer weekend and just go.»

FRANCISCO LACHOWSKI (FORD)

For women, there were sweet sundress renditions. One saccharine frock had embroidered watermelons, smocking on the bodice, and straps that tied into floppy bows. Another floral-printed version was more attractive, if not for its roomy tunic fit, then for its nickname: the «Drunk Mommy dress,» Bastian called it. But it wasn’t only girly girls who were catered to. Tomboys also had options, in a rainbow-striped vest and cargo pants.

RODRIGO CALAZANS (NEXT)

Predictably, the men’s designs were stronger. Denim, in candy colors, was nicely tapered and rolled just above the ankle. Camo, amped up in red, was layered in with the requisite Hawaiian flower and tiki motifs. Bastian also showed a knack for tweaking rugby shirts with agreeable details such as an exaggerated contrast placket, or lacing instead of buttons. Swimwear, though, was where things really got fun. A pair of pink swim trunks with a hippo print was merry enough for both Maui and East Hampton. Meanwhile, one beefy male model seemed to be wearing nothing but a mint green Gant logo cotton tank top (if you looked closely, you could see tiny swim briefs underneath). If anything, it brought plenty of smiles all around.

JEREMY SCOTT SPRING 2012 MENSWEAR

TRAVIS CANNATA (FORD)

Jeremy Scott’s invitation was a beach-and-palms picture postcard—»Greetings From Paradise!»—and on the back, in Scott’s scrawl, «Wish you were here.» It was tempting to think that, in the current moment of Hawaiiana, which has found an unlikely following among a number of designers, Scott was going to go all-out and put on a luau the likes of which this trend has never seen.

SEBASTIAN SAUVÉ (SOUL ARTIST)

Over the top of over-the-top is his calling card, after all. But you can expect this designer to shy away from the expected. What Scott turned out instead was a freckled fantasy of life back on the farm, refracted through Hollywood lenses. Elly May Clampett of The Beverly Hillbillies was the collection’s guiding light, though you could see Miss Daisy Duke in the mix, too. Country-boy bandannas were done up in metal mesh and turned into handkerchief minidresses. Bib overalls were cut and pasted into skirts and halter tops. There were cow prints for country cute, but also cactus motifs out of Santa Fe. Why? Don’t ask. Scott sent out a dress dangling giant question marks. There’s the only answer you’ll get.

RIVER VIIPERI (SOUL ARTIST)

Few designers can claim to have followed the Clampett example, but as Scott pointed out backstage, he grew up on a farm outside of Kansas City, Missouri, and eventually hightailed it, Beverly Hillbillies-style, to Hollywood.

The show was a return of sorts, and, as the designer said with a laugh backstage, «there’s no place like home.» The personal connection might have lent an intimacy to the proceedings, but actually this offering felt a little more remote than some of a recent vintage, like the remember-those-days gods-and-party-monsters collection from Fall 2011. The saving grace turned out to be the shoes, in particular, needle-nosed creepers for the guys—a preview of Scott’s Adidas collaboration to come.

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.

 

ALEXANDER McQUEEN SPRING 2012 MENSAWEAR

«English rock,» the stated inspiration for the Alexander McQueen men’s show today, embraces a multitude of possibilities, from the indie-est shoe-gaze to the most flagrant theater, with armies of fans embracing each and every one of them. And that’s what seeped through the collection that Sarah Burton offered. Her love for what she does found a theme that loved her back.

It’s a funny coincidence that Raf Simons used the Jil Sander collection he showed the other day to telescope half a century’s worth of style into a single fashion statement. Burton made it easier on herself by more or less addressing one decade—the sixties—from its mod onset to its Dionysian conclusion. Although it wasn’t strictly Mick and the Stones that Burton had on her mind, you could whisk up a little through-line if you followed the show from its checked and striped beginning to the white-jeans-and-Chelsea-boots moment to the red-velvet dandyism to subverted Savile Row. Then there was that flouncy white thing Jagger wore for the band’s legendary free concert in Hyde Park followed by a climax in jet-beaded, fedora-ed decadence when rock’s «Satanic Majesties» danced with the devil and got burned by hellfire. All of this was happening while Stevie Ray Vaughan did his level best on the soundtrack to prove that he was Jimi Hendrix’s equal when it came to «Voodoo Child»‘s feedback freak-out.

Never mind reading too much into a fashion show, the dark drive of the presentation certainly played into the McQueen spirit. Burton continued to evolve what is becoming a signature dialogue between tailored precision and easy volume: a puce tail coat over elasticized-waist pajamalike pants, for instance, or a striped, double-breasted jacket over Lurex-shot pants that, again, could have been pj’s. She also struck a skillful balance between the measured—the three-piece suit—and the extreme—the flames that consumed a jacket and matching shirt. Those are two radically different markets right there, and signs are that Burton is perfectly capable of steering a steady course between them.

GIVENCHY SPRING 2012

Riccardo Tisci always wanted to be a surfer when he was a kid. He could never have known that the biggest luxury conglomerate in the world would one day wave its wand over his wish. And so it came to pass that Tisci got to create a collection of clothes that turned his childhood fantasy into an elaborate, provocative reality.

That’s been the story of Tisci’s life since he was taken on by LVMH six years ago to reanimate Givenchy. Fairy tales do come true. And truer. After establishing himself as the embodiment of fashion’s dark night of the Catholic-Gothic soul, Tisci has gone into the light with his new menswear collection. It was dawn in Givenchyworld—tropical-flower prints, crystals and sequins sparkling like dew on leaves, and white… so much white, banishing every trace of the black that has been Tisci’s trademark up to this point. More to the point, it was a triumph.

Who knows why all the elements that have looked so contrived over the years of Tisci’s stewardship of Givenchy should suddenly fall into place as logical, seductive revisions of fashion orthodoxy? Perhaps everything looks better when the sun shines. Maybe when it was dark and serious, it somehow seemed like a big old fashion-student cliché. Whereas here, it was simply unabashed and celebratory. Men in skirts? Get used to them. It’s warriorwear from years back. Besides, Tisci wasn’t about to get so literal with his Hawaiian subtext that he was going to show grass skirts.

Common sense dictates that it’s a rare retailer who’d be moving substantial amounts of Tisci’s pleated little numbers (even if, in white, they looked like Wimbledon wonders). But the upbeat energy of the collection animated its more sober components. Team Tisci’s sporty staples—the bombers, baseball jackets, sweats, tees, and shorts over leggings-were juiced with the bird-of-paradise prints. And his tailoring looked fresh in ivory and army green. That freshness was all promise, but everything about an exuberant post-show Tisci suggested he was ready to deliver.

JOHN RICHMOND SPRING 2012

John Richmond may be little known in the U.S., but his brand of rock ‘n’ roll-inflected sportswear has a sizable presence in Europe. His aesthetic has taken on a lot more Milanese flash than it had in the eighties, when he was based in London and designed as part of a team with Maria Cornejo. Today, in a show he dubbed a «couture reggae party,» he used prints based on Japanese tattoos to liven up tees and knits, and he laser-cut intricate patterns into a black leather shirt and sand-colored jackets. The enjoyable soundtrack mash-up included a burst of Althea & Donna’s cult reggae classic «Uptown Top Ranking.» You can forgive a man a lot for that, though not, perhaps, the perforated fuchsia loafers.

GORDON BOTHE (I LOVE)

BRIAN DAVENPORT

JEREMY YOUNG (FASHION)

GUY ROBINSON (WHY NOT)

TARAS KOLTUN (FASHION)

MICHAEL GSTOTTNER

ANDREA PRETI (ELITE)

GORDON BOTHE (I LOVE)

BRIAN DAVENPORT

JEREMY YOUNG (FASHION)

GUY ROBINSON (WHY NOT)

TARAS KOLTUN (FASHION)

MICHAEL GSTOTTNER

ANDREA PRETI (ELITE)

GORDON BOTHE (I LOVE)

BRIAN DAVENPORT

JEREMY YOUNG (FASHION)

CANALI SPRING 2012

As an inspiration for a luxury suitmaker likeCanali, India serves a useful dual purpose: It addresses an important growing market and gives the design team a chance to play with color and pattern. Things started conventionally enough with a series of suits, one in a dusty rose tone-on-tone stripe, others in checks or seersucker. Traditional silk scarves peeked out from under lapels. Then the perspective shifted eastward. Those scarves exploded into ever more extravagant pattern, Nehru collars replaced notch lapels, and one model toted a canvas bag printed with an image of Ganesh. It culminated in a parade of orange and pink, turquoise and emerald green, as well as a tableau of embroidered and beaded alterna-tuxes. Everything was finished with the Canali precision and attention to detail, even if this kind of Western embrace of Eastern motifs already feels slightly rote by now.

MAX MOTTA (WHY NOT)

 

 

DIRK BIKKEMBERGS SPRING 2012

DIRK BIKKEMBERGS SPRING 2012

SO FRESH – LEEBO FREEMAN & ALEXANDER BECK FOR L’OFFICIEL HOMMES GERMANY

ALEXANDER BECK (DNA)

«SO FRESH»

LEEBO FREEMAN (VIVA)

L’OFFICIEL HOMMES ALEMANIA S/S 2011

EMILIO TINI FOTÓGRAFO

EL AMERICANO DE 22 AÑOS SIGUE TRIUNFANDO

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.