The Next Look : From Paris, the Style Is Colorful, the Shape Is Soft
Soft shapes, soft colors, soft fabrics and even softer looking shoes themed the spring menswear shows that kept retailers racing from music halls to municipal gyms to showrooms, private clubs and boxing rings. It was the kind of frenzy not experienced here since the heyday of women’s shows.
American stores, including Saks Fifth Avenue, I. Magnin, Macy’s, Bullock’s and Barneys, all agreed that it was worth the energy expended. These were some of the strongest and most inspirational men’s collections in years, store representatives said.
Along with established design stars such as Jean Paul Gaultier and Claude Montana, new entrants this season were Karl Lagerfeld and Emmanuel Ungaro.
Lagerfeld showed his first menswear collection, which he estimates will account for 35% of his Lagerfeld-label business within three years, via a subtitled silent film that he produced and directed himself. Like the story line, the clothes were romantic in mood.
His more realistic Italian manufacturers invited everyone to cocktails after the film, where the actual clothes were shown on mannequins.
More conventional were Ungaro’s clothes, which ranged from classic pure-silk suits treated as casually as cotton to sportier, big-shouldered linen jackets worn on deeply pleated trousers held up with suspenders.
Ungaro’s calm refinement came as culture shock after Gaultier’s cowboy theme, from a West much wilder than anything known to the Marlboro man. Imagine ostrich-feather chaps or pants shaped like chaps with that strategic cutout revealing printed boxer shorts.
As always with Gaultier, even the craziest of runway spectacles is filled with ideas his customers will want to snap up, such as his Gauloise-blue cotton shirts, the ribbon brocade vests, the three-button rayon jackets in butter yellow or sky blue with huge, round, fabric-covered buttons, always worn with the shirt collar lying out on the lapels. He also showed multicolored, lightweight knits that hug rippling biceps.
Montana’s big news is his softened-shoulder silhouette. Gone are the door-filling pads of seasons past, leaving jackets in linen and suede that look as supple as the softest sweaters.
Jackets were unlined and almost always shown with sweaters beneath, an ascot knotted around the neck, and that easy, pleated-trouser shape that dominated the menswear collections.
Montana’s always inspirational colors centered around two palettes: gentle shades of beige and brown mixed with old rose and blush pink, lemon- and lime-sherbet shades for jackets and pants with the dark dash of a black sweater.
Vests, a theme in all the shows, were also important at Montana, his often done in suede.
Other shows that retailers liked were by English designers Paul Smith and Katherine Hamnett. Hamnett stuck to creams, ivories and white for flannel jackets, sweaters and pants where the absence of true color and the high-buttoned cut of the jackets suggested an Edwardian lawn party.
Smith showed every color you can think of for printed shirts, along with uncuffed cotton shorts, knit or fabric vests and ruffled-front shirts. His navy and white story, with white cotton T-shirt and navy pants, was simple, straightforward fashion at its best.
Nino Cerruti had that same pairing of a white T-shirt with navy pants, which had an elegance lacking in much of the rest of his show. A double-breasted jacket decorated with at least 12 buttons was worn over a ruffled jabot shirt and wide-leg, cuffed shorts, for example. Some in the audience wondered if these were attention-getting clothes for the press, and the “real clothes” were back in the showroom.
One New York retailer dubbed the Yohji Yamamoto show “Oscar Wilde goes to Tokyo.” There was something Wildean about those poetic bows that replaced ties, the long, center-parted hair styles of the models, the bunches of fabric pulled through buttonholes, as well as the shock of two tomato-red suits from the master of black and navy. There was, however, enough of the latter to please his confirmed fans.
Issey Miyake was in a sportier mood, underlined by showing in a municipal gym, with the models divided into two teams and bouncing a basketball around the center of the court. The clothes were sporty too; standouts were the heathered gray jersey sweats, which opened the collection, and the oversize pastel knit sweaters.
Kenzo was back on the show circuit after a two-season hiatus with, as always, conventionally cut clothes in unconventional color mixes--shocking when Kenzo first did the look, but now, classics.
As at Yamamoto, Kenzo also had a bright red suit, his shown with a poppy printed white shirt, the collar layered on the lapels.
Color was a vital element at both Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent’s Rive Gauche. At Dior, designer Dominique Morlotti zapped classic gray flannel suits with a new dimension of cyclamen or buttercup or grass green finely striped shirts. At Rive Gauche, that Humphrey Bogart trench was something else in sky blue.
Ties just about disappeared from these spring-summer collections, with designers opting instead for a silk scarf wrapped around the neck and tucked into a shirt or sweater. The only new looking tie in Paris was the mini, from both Gaultier and Hamnett: a classic tie that stops at mid-pectorals.
And watch for the return of white socks. Almost everyone showed them with shoes that looked as soft and unstructured as most of the clothes.
What They Showed
Ungaro: casual silk suits; deep-pleat trousers
Gaultier: fabric buttons; lightweight knits
Montana: softened shoulders; suede vests
Lagerfeld: vests buttoned high and low
Kenzo: unconventional color mixes
Smith: printed shirts; uncuffed shorts
