Mensware Spring 2008 - Designers style

Calvin Klein

If you’re going to adopt American icons as your theme, you could do much worse than to start with Bruce Weber, America’s greatest modern iconographer. And Weber makes even more sense for Calvin Klein designer Italo Zucchelli, because the photographer’s campaigns for the label created some of the most iconic publicity images of the past 30 years. But what truly hovered over Zucchelli’s latest Calvin collection was the spirit of the photographs Weber took of the 1984 U.S. Olympic team for a special issue of Interview. The chiseled perfection of the models with their aerodynamic hair echoed Weber and, beyond that, Leni Riefenstahl’s Aryan androids.

The clothes were infused with an athleticism so overt that some of them could have leapt straight from catwalk to parallel bars without an eyeblink. Airtex tops, tanks, Lycra shorts, and leather trackpants suggested workout wear. A sweatsuit was exactly that: jacket and trousers tailored out of sweatshirting. An outfit that looked like a gymnast’s one-piece topped by a flesh-toned jacket tailored to Zucchelli’s demanding specs just about summed up this designer’s cerebral take on the physical. Perhaps such a thing is inevitable when a European eye is trained on an American fashion institution—what it ultimately means is that Zucchelli’s evolution of the Klein ethos is producing some of the most modern and perversely attractive menswear around. E.g., blue and silver blousons produced in a lenticular process that gives them an alien shimmer, or shirt and trousers seamlessly fused into one jumpsuit moment.

Dolce & Gabbana

The soundtrack for Dolce & Gabbana’s presentation was Timbaland, but the inspiration looked like purest Timberlake: the shaved-headed models, the young urban take on dressing up, the overall edge. Domenico and Stefano smartly acknowledged the way that contemporary menswear merges day and night by running their show back to front. They opened with a formal look—tuxedo-striped pants, shawl-collared jackets, contrast lapels—and closed (finale aside) with a blouson and combats in linen all scrunched up in the curious twenty-first-century Stone Age effect they used in their last women’s collection. In between came a typically catholic collection of items that covered the ever-widening Dolce & Gabbana waterfront: from a white linen jacket that offered one of the season’s more appealing takes on menswear’s evolving see-through kick, to a pair of denim clamdiggers that, teamed with a floral shirt, hinted at one half of the design duo’s long-standing affection for hippie chic.
The final march-past of mannequins all sported white orchids in the breast pockets of their evening suits, but that romantic flourish was less intriguing than the show’s use of technology. Screens suspended over the catwalk featured a Minority Report-style forensic look at the proceedings, and one passage of combat-inspired clothing was illuminated by LED-like hardware, an arresting way for the modern attention junkie to feed his habit.

Emporio Armani

“Crazy for Italy,” proclaimed the show notes. “Italiana,” blared the back-projection. And, when the summer sun is shining on Milan, who could really blame Giorgio Armani for his enthusiastic patriotism? To a soundtrack of appropriately partisan pop, Armani paraded a collection of Italian sportswear that surprisingly elevated quirk over classic. Hence cropped pants with buckled ankles, or trousers that were legging-tight with buttoned calves, which reflected the increasingly devil-may-care confidence of a designer in his please-myself years. In actual fact, such items may well have worked their way into the wardrobes of countrymen in not-so-long-ago Italy (those calf-buttoning pants were like mutated riding breeches), which goes to prove that Armani is always drawing from a deep well of memory when he designs.

His building block remains the jacket, which he toyed with here in a new offering as deconstructed as a shirt. Worn simply with a waistcoat by a number of mannequins over their bare torsos, it backed up the claim of the show notes that the essence of Italy embraces “finely tuned bodies that showcase the physique.” The overtness of such a notion, which stood in stark contrast to Armani’s years of restraint and discretion, was a further indication of the pleasure he seems to be deriving from his work. Likewise, the obvious sensuousness of slouchy sweaters that unbuttoned all the way down the arm, or the ease of drawstring-waisted trousers with elastic cuffs. And the final group of EA7 activewear, accompanied by lethal-looking roller skates from New Zealand, hinted at what might still be to come.

Valentinos

Valentino’s latest collection was presented as a static installation. The idea was that a crowd of gilded young men were propping up a nightclub bar while they waited for a showgirl revue to start. On came the lido dancers, off they trooped, and that was it. (The models’ lack of interest in the bare-breasted women behind them seemed unfeigned.) It was a curiously low-key affair—or as low-key as anything featuring a half-naked female in a huge feathered getup in the middle of the day could be—especially after last season’s sumptuous parade of menswear at its best.

But the muted presentation actually suited the clothes. The emphasis was solidly on the classic: double-breasted suits, peak-lapelled sport jackets, gray flannels, pinstripes, windowpane checks, polka dots. Valentino’s signature luxe was evident in the cut and the fabrics—in fact, it was easy to envisage the designer himself in many of the outfits—but that saveur of the louche that usually gives his men’s collections their sly resonance was missing. Sure, there was a pink silk jacket here and a blouson in dark-green crocodile there, but that old break-the-bank Val magic was under heavy restraint. Perhaps he’s saving it for his 45th anniversary extravaganza in Rome in two weeks.

Yohji Yamamoto

Without a mastodon to club, storytelling is the oldest way to snare an audience. The story Yohji Yamamoto told this time around provided a vital focus for his design. It helped him quite literally trim away the superfluous volume that has recently been something of a bête noire, and it added a topical poignancy that made the collection the strongest he has shown in years.

War is an inescapable fact of contemporary life. Yohji chose to address it with a subtle narrative thread that dealt with a soldier’s homecoming, using classic Dylan numbers to soundtrack the journey. The opening passages offered clothes that hinted at aggression: combat pockets and bondage zips on pants, military detailing, a red crisscross motif on shirts that looked like an attenuated cross of St. George. Then came doves printed on jackets and pants. Shades of sky blue suggested optimism and escape. T-shirts bore the messages “Feel Like Being Home” and “I Shall Be Released,” and there were pieces that looked slightly stained by age, as though they’d been stored in a trunk for someone who’d been away for a while. Toward the end of the show, Yohji retreated to the voluminous black cupro jackets and trousers that have been his signature for too long—an “evening” group featured a semi-Edwardian cutaway jacket over a waistcoat and white shirt. But otherwise, one of the freshest facets of this collection was a generally leaner cut. “Optimism!” Yohji cried backstage, and who could deny that?

Sources: men.style  mensflair

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