New York Trade Show : Men’s Designs Heed the New Rules of Relaxation
“Protocol for men has relaxed,” said Ronaldus Shamask, who ought to know. Shamask is one of 14 well-known menswear designers who participated in a show of “fashion forward” clothes this week as part of the five-day Men’s Fashion Assn. fall press showings.
The new rules of relaxation for fall/winter from these designers is part of a melding of the elements of tailored clothing and sportswear, a trend that has been evolving for several seasons. It’s a concept that Southern Californians have always appreciated and have made their own style for some time.
Suits and sport jackets feature little or no construction and are almost as easy to wear as a sweat shirt. Trousers are generally pleated or very full cut, for ease of movement and balance with the new, fuller-cut and easily constructed jackets.
Knitwear has gained new respect in suits, jackets and trouser styles; these styles resemble traditional tailored looks but are a softer, more comfortable alternative (not to mention being easy to travel in). Even dress shirts with ties are getting competition from knit polo shirts, turtleneck sweaters and elegant knit sport shirts, for wear with suits and sport jackets.
Designers get away with relaxing dress standards by balancing all this ease with a little elegant excess. The newest soft suits come in dressier double-breasted styles, with peak lapels. Fabrics are often elegantly rich blends of silks, cashmeres and fine wools; or modern, cutting-edge synthetics such as puckered rayons. These are light to the touch but textured-looking, in keeping with fall/winter’s heavier looks.
Vests in wovens and knits are a way to dress up sporty outfits or relax business looks. And the newest, most-forward jacket style is a three-button model with a higher closure that actually has a history based in a more elegant Edwardian era.
Computer Graphics
Jhane Barnes, often described as a “modernist pioneer,” has been experimenting with computer graphics for some time. She gives her relaxed, traditional suits, jackets and trousers a jolt by patterning them in geometrics, best exemplified in a houndstooth double-breasted suit that looks relaxed and graphically innovative all at once.
Los Angeles-based Leon Max’s Max Studio Men line looks both elegant and modern. The romantic theme of the collection will please latter-day Lord Byrons, who can look both romantic and relaxed in Max’s collarless velvet jackets and velvet vests, embroidered shirts and faille pants. His brown glen plaid, high-button blazer and his navy wool crepe double-knit jacket are sure soft-sells for fall. He even gives a preppie-look navy blazer and khaki pants some modern punch by softening the jacket, cutting the pants full and accessorizing the look with an Edwardian-looking bold-striped shirt and bow tie.
Shamask adds elegance to the simplicity of his clothes by coloring his suits and jackets in solid shades of cherry, mustard, wine and blue.
And Bill Robinson’s “hip variations on American classics” include a baseball jacket in rich-looking leather and suede, worn with plaid full-cut slacks and a loose and easy, full-cut double-breasted houndstooth suit modernized in rayon and coupled in the new, “relaxed” way with a chartreuse rayon shirt and cabbage print tie.
