Back to the Future
Some designers took a giant leap into the past when they showed their fall and winter menswear to press and buyers here earlier this month.
Frock coats reminiscent of those worn by Edwardian dandies looked even dandier when shown with knee breeches and ruffled jabot shirts. Brocade vests and crushed-velvet trousers added to the time-warp effect.
Strong endorsers of this remembrance of things past were London’s Katharine Hamnett and Paris’ Jean Paul Gaultier, who added to the fun by having all his models wear “Lone Ranger” face masks and Dali-esque waxed mustaches.
Both designers, however, frequently anticipate worldwide trends before they happen. And if they feel there’s a frock coat in your future, maybe there is.
For several seasons now, these French menswear showings have been growing in importance. There were more than 30 runway presentations this time around, and audiences are larger than before. American retailers who traipsed all over town to catch the action included contingents from I. Magnin, Macy’s California, Bloomingdale’s, Barney’s and Charivari in New York and a big group from Marshall Field in Chicago, which will start a four-month French promotion in September.
Hamnett made her impact with a small collection. Gaultier kept his audience entertained for more than an hour with an extravaganza of ideas: a zip-front, checked shirt worn with a checked suit, a version of the Chairman Mao jacket over Charlie Chaplin baggy pants, jackets detailed to look as if they’re inside-out and sophisticated camel overcoats with underarm slits for a cape-like effect.
Gaultier’s classic, six-button jacket is cut slightly longer and easier for next fall, to balance the very narrow stirrup pants tucked into brown leather shoes, which looked to have built-in bunions. When that narrow pants shape didn’t have stirrup straps, it had the update that was seen in every menswear collection: cuffs at least 6 inches deep.
Gaultier’s colors are usually his favorite murky browns, purples and spinach greens, but this time there were explosions of bright orange and red for cropped blouson jackets or drawstring-waist parkas, while several of those frock coats took on an extra dimension when cut in sunflower yellow or Pacific blue.
Bowler hats, fringed silk and wool scarfs bowed high on the neck, those face masks and mustaches were the Gaultier accessories.
If Gaultier dazzled with his ingenuity, Claude Montana dazzled with his perfectionist approach. As he has been doing for several seasons, Montana continues to avoid the tough-edged aggressiveness that once characterized his clothes.
For winter, everything looked supple, soft, easy and comfortable. Shown his way, in muted shades of gray layered from the shirt out to the coat, or in a navy and eggplant palette, this was still very much a collection for the faithful follower. The individual pieces, however, were such that even the most conservative dresser could find lots to buy here, starting with the marvelous Montana greatcoats and continuing to his adaptations of classic one-, three- or double-buttoned suit jackets.
Pants silhouettes were either loose and pleated, breaking on suede laced shoes, or narrow shapes with that deep cuff previously mentioned.
Suedes and leathers, usually important here, were less so this season. Montana’s pumpkin suede blouson added color to a monochromatic color story. He also had a version of the Mao--or could it be an early Beatles--suit: the mid-thigh jacket buttoned to the neck and was worn over narrow pants.
Nino Cerruti sometimes lets his young design assistants try their hands at menswear. But before this show, he said: “I wanted to do it all myself; my way with comfort and ease.”
There were signature touches, such as deep cuffs and Cerruti’s sportier version of the Mao suit (his looked more like a Chinese worker’s outfit), but done simply and with elegance.
As at Montana, almost all his suit looks were shown tie-less. The few ties Cerruti did show were the tie news of the season: wide and soft.
Cerruti called the evening portion of his show “cocooning,” and instead of sending out traditional black-tie looks, sent out the models in faded tartan dressing gowns edged in blanket fringe or at-home velvet smoking jackets on tartan stay-at-home trousers.
Thierry Mugler has his own strong menswear look, but even he seemed to be softening up for fall/winter. Colors like violet and lime took some of the sternness out of those Mugler uniforms: collarless jackets snapped shut at the waist over narrow pants. Here too, the collarless coat was great looking in a murky brown.
Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo at Comme des Garcons seemed in a more relaxed mood. But both collections, with their navy jackets tipped or piped in white and shown with white corduroy pants, looked more summer than winter.
Yamamoto’s approach was more straightforward than it has ever been, with the proportions of jackets, sweaters and trousers well within norms acceptable to most men.
In a more extravagant mood were Marithe and Francois Girbaud, where pant shapes ranged from knickers to jodhpurs to knee breeches. Some jackets, in this bicentenary year of the French Revolution, looked pure Napoleon.
They, as well as London’s Paul Smith and Nikos Apostolopoulos, were big fans of velvet fabric, using it in everything from vests to jackets and trousers.
Smith’s best looks were his dark-background, printed velvet floral shirts and vests, which were worn with pinwale cords.
Nikos, who made his reputation with sexy men’s underwear, now does an entire collection ranging from Count Dracula capes to Flash Gordon silver motorcycle jackets. The more commercial items included layered blousons, the underneath one in denim, the top one in brushed wool.
