Fashion 88 : Blending In Is Out as Men Focus on Details
Award-winning designer Bill Robinson doesn’t take menswear details--or television--lightly. “In the old days, the idea of power dressing was to blend in. That’s not it anymore,” said Robinson, discussing menswear minutiae from his country home in Bucks County, Pa.
“There’s a whole generation who grew up with MTV and rock ‘n’ roll. They want to be a little bit more hip. When they look at ‘The Cosby Show,’ ‘L.A. Law’ and ‘thirtysomething,’ they relate to the characters and they get an affirmation of their own sense of style: Yes, you’re supposed to wear neat, nifty, new ties.”
New Meaning
A nifty new tie might not sound like much. But in menswear, little things mean everything.
This summer, in what’s viewed as a major crossover--sportswear is dressier, tailored clothing is more relaxed--there’s no shortage of subtle changes.
The important details include sensual and exotic fabrics, pattern mixing, suspenders with buttons, embroidery trims, no-crease pants, elegant walking shorts, ‘40s-style everything (including ties), no ties, looser armholes, extended shoulders, drop shoulders, unusual pockets, unexpected buttons and buttonholes, out-of-the-ordinary lapels and suit jackets with elasticized waistbands.
“There’s a definite return to dressed-up elegance. And it goes into casual clothes as well,” said Wesley Clay, vice president of fashion merchandising for Robinson’s.
Dressing Up Casual Look
“When I was growing up in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, casual was a pair of Levi’s 501 jeans, topsiders and a polo shirt. I don’t even see kids responding to that today. They’re more into mixing patterns and cleaned-up, dressed-up casual wear.”
Preferred designers, according to Clay, range from Armani to Claiborne for Men and Generra.
“If I bought pleated, patterned linen Armani trousers, I’d probably be paying $125 to $150. If I went to the Generra shop, I could find cotton or cotton-and-rayon patterned, pleated trousers for $42 to $50,” Clay said.
His other educated tips for summer include men’s dress shirts with white collars and those with “vintage, antique stripes. It’s Old World England, very Savile Row.”
Other shirt details include unusual textures, oversize pockets, drop shoulders and yoke treatments, both front and back.
Clay remembers “when my dad bought one shirt and tie to go with his suit.” Today, men are buying “two, three and four accessories at a time. Men really care about how they look. Especially in Southern California, where I think clothes are as important to a man as the car he drives.”
Riding the New York subways, Harlan Bratcher, sales and promotion director for designer Ronaldus Shamask, checks out the fashion scene.
“The workplace is getting much more flexible,” he reported. “Men are taking advantage of that. I’ve seen--under conservative pin-stripe suits--the most incredibly loud suspenders. Men seem to be subconsciously screaming: ‘I really don’t want to be wearing this suit. I want to have my own personality.’ ”
Shamask designs semi-constructed “suits” (although everything is sold as sportswear separates, another new detail in menswear, Bratcher said).
“There’s a half-lining in the back of the jacket, so it softens the drape. It’s not cardboard-like. And we have half as much lining in the front. At first you wouldn’t know it. Our gray flannel suit could look like Brooks Brothers. Then you notice the guy looks relaxed, comfortable,” Bratcher said.
Color comes up as Shamask’s leading detail for summer. “Bold, vibrant colors such as bright blue, teal and eggplant,” explained Bratcher, adding: “Menswear is basically so conservative. We tone down something like an eggplant blazer by putting a black-and-white stripe cotton shirt underneath and adding a pair of khaki pants.”
According to Bratcher: “The trend that is going to survive is the fitted jacket--nipped in at the waist and the hips--with softer, extended shoulders.”
The Shamask shoulder pads are new: They’re “toned down. We top stitched them,” explained Bratcher, “which brings the curvature down.”
“Savile Row savoir-faire” is how Alan Flusser, designer, author and retailer, describes one of his newest custom-made combinations: a glen plaid, single-breasted suit with peak lapels.
“It’s for a real cognoscente,” said Flusser, who created the sartorial elegance Michael Douglas wore in “Wall Street.”
At latest count, Flusser’s Manhattan store has a waiting list of 135 people for the next batch of horizontal-stripe shirts, with white collar and cuffs, popularized by Douglas in the film.
There’s also a self-collar version of the $85 shirt. “It’s very interesting,” said Flusser. “The collar stripes go at a 45 degree angle.”
In addition to that little detail, Flusser is using patch pockets on a number of jackets, including a “rather authentic” double-breasted blazer. (The originals worn on the HMS Blazer were single-breasted, he said.)
Convinced that “all the wonderful menswear has already been done,” he pays attention to the past. For summer, he has revived “solid grenadine silk ties. The fabric was very popular in America in the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s.”
His customers like the neckwear in either yellow or burgundy. They’re also keen on crisp white linen pocket squares piped in burgundy or navy. And polka-dot suspenders, which Douglas immortalized on film, are in demand.
Locally, at Fred Segal on Melrose Avenue, the new details include appliques and special metal trims. Unique denim jackets ($300-$400), for example, are decorated with Spanish religious ornaments known as milagros. And a rayon shirt, by Jean Paul Gaultier for Bogy’s ($420), features both felt and metal appliques.
But comfort is perhaps the most important detail of all. “Men want fabrics that feel good,” said George Grimball, the menswear manager at Fred Segal. “They touch the fabric first. That dictates whether they want to put it on.” As a result, Grimball said: “We’re selling a lot of silk.”
Colby McWilliams, director of men’s fashion for Neiman-Marcus, also talks about comfort and an innovative high-twist cloth used in private label suits: “It’s a fine wool, spun in such a way that it doesn’t wrinkle. You can wad it up in your hand for an hour and it won’t crease. It’s great for travel.”
Another new fabric detail is wool crepe. But it does have a wrinkle. McWilliams, who likes it and wears it, confessed: “It has a tendency to stretch. Trouser legs grow longer and the waist gets bigger. I bought a pair in Paris.
“After I wore them a couple of times, they were huge. You have to have them altered,” he added stoically.
