So Long to Pseudo-Swank
Let Calvin Klein mire himself in cheerless Euro-angst, Tommy Hilfiger dish up more Homeboys Deluxe, and Donna Karan show her top-of-the-line men’s collection in Italy, where she can really be appreciated. At the fall menswear shows here, Ralph Lauren was back to Old Money American opulence and, to hear him tell it, not a moment too soon.
Nixing a runway presentation and instead presiding over a series of intimate showroom presentations, the designer said his customers are tired of being given “fashion” when what they really want is good clothes.
“In trying to be creative, you miss the boat sometimes with the consumer,” Lauren admitted. Last season’s skinny black suits earned him the 1996 Menswear Designer of the Year Award, but they died at retail.
Men just don’t want to look like “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”
So while other Seventh Avenue designers showed major “fashion”--a mishmash of ideas that included slim two-button suits, colorful dress shirts, nylon cargo pants, skinny tops tucked into wide pants, dark denim jeans, logos galore and even a rabbit maxicoat worn with a matching bikini from a line called F8--Lauren offered classic tweed suits, cashmere turtlenecks, gray flannel pants and camel’s hair overcoats.
His are the kind of clothes that, to some, scream ‘80s establishment, but to others feel like a much needed back rub after too many seasons of ‘60s jet-set chic and ‘70s redux. “It’s somewhat unfashionable fashion,” Lauren said. “But this feels fresh to me again.”
In plain English (tailoring), he’s absolutely right.
The clothes that look best for fall buck the prevailing trends of “look-at-me-and-my-ennui” and the studied edginess of pseudo-swank, in favor of upbeat understatement and moneyed luxe. In a non-stellar season, the pieces that shone last week were Nicole Farhi’s camel argyles and silver imitation astrakhan coats; John Bartlett’s cashmere Shaker-knit sweaters and black leather short-sleeved shirts with silver buckles on bicep-hugging cuffs; Wolfgang Joop’s decidedly New Wave take on droopy sweaters and wide tweed pants; and Gene Meyer’s ribbed Shetland cardigans worn over his so-called big pant. All were signs that the fashion aesthetic is changing. Again.
Klein’s show, as somber as ever, of single-breasted cashmere coats, slim (but not tight) two-button suits and chunky-collared wool turtlenecks fill the bill of modern elegance without extremity. Only when he relied on styling tricks fresh off the European menswear runways--a slash of brightly colored untucked T-shirt sticking out of the bottom of a dark sweater, for instance--did Klein seem a follower. Yet this trendiness worked at times too. His black leather zip-front jacket, layered over a gray cashmere V-neck (with a hint of red T-shirt exposed) and dark brown flat-front pants looked fab. But why do Klein’s collections always seem so damned depressing?
Hilfiger’s walk-through presentation didn’t need any Zoloft. The hugely successful designer took all interested parties on what he called a “World Tour” to London’s Savile Row and Carnaby Street, the slopes of Gstaad, the streets of New York and back to England for a “West Country Weekend.”
Sartorially, this meant close-to-the-body suits and maxi-length Chesterfield coats; satin nylon ski pants and coats with fake-fur collars; leopard-print leather jackets and skinny striped pants; and purple Shetland suits, respectively. For his street-smart finale, “Old School Style,” break dancers did their thing in his nylon ensembles and logo-covered sporting goods. “The Hilfiger party is the tops, because the Hilfiger party never stops,” they rapped.
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Hilfiger wasn’t the only homeboy on Seventh Avenue, or the only designer to choose Carnaby Street as his rue du jour. Wilke Rodriguez also showed plaid “Carnaby Street jeans,” faux pony-skin suits, slinky knit tops and skinny flat-front pants. Three of the newest lines to join the 7th on Sixth menswear lineup--Ecko Unlimited, Fubu and Maurice Malone--filled the runways with the kind of street wear long associated with hip-hop: visible underwear waistbands, big jeans, nylon jackets, polar fleece, overalls, cargo pants and camouflage.
While the Mossimo collection was big on sheer shirts and bootleg trousers, a much newer silhouette was the tight shirt tucked into baggy bottoms.
In the DKNY collection--which Karan did deign to show in New York--the trousers of choice were wide-legged “chinos,” in such fabrics as sueded cotton and wool flannel, and roomy nylon fatigues. Paired with ribbed turtlenecks, they looked unexpectedly refreshing, reflecting what Karan’s program notes called “the soul of the city.”
After last season, when even dress pants looked spray-painted on, things have loosened up. At Hugo Boss, suits were lean but not extreme, even when rendered in brown stretch wool.
In the trend that is most likely to take hold, Hugo Boss suits took brightly colored cotton dress shirts with a hint of Lycra in them. At Nautica by David Chu, dress shirts came in burnt orange and were paired with green and orange windowpane wool pants.
The week’s most-inspired presentation--a real “show” show--was Bartlett’s ode to the commercial artist J.C. Leyendecker at Pier 90 on the Hudson River. Calling it “a collection that superimposes the football idol and the comfortably idle,” Bartlett showed tie-fly football pants, Prince of Wales plaid chesterfield jackets and matching wide-legged pants, and stretch flannel uniform shirts over belted slim pants. As fake snow fell on a dirt-floor runway and against a forest backdrop of birch trees, he also previewed his first women’s collection, which will be shown in New York in April.
