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.

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.