On the Up and Up

In the 1970s, when I was in high school, you could always tell which boys were wearing last year’s clothes by the length of their pants. We called these ankle-baring slacks flood-waters. But for next spring, 1999 menswear designers are calling them fashion.

Similarly, at school picture time, mom dragged me to the Broadway department store to buy “a nice suit,” which meant a buff-colored, stiff-fitting, polyester-cotton model made by Angel’s Flight that buckled under the arms and flared at the waist. I paired it with a snug, short-sleeve shirt. All the guys who wore a similar combination thought we looked like dorks. But next spring, those ill-fitting jackets and short-sleeve shirts are dope, or just plain cool.

Just how so many menswear designers got their hands on my high school yearbook I’ll never know. But if memory serves, that wasn’t a peak time for men’s fashion.

Don’t ask why, but we men like our pants to go all the way to the ground, our sport coats to have shoulder pads that camouflage our sloping shoulders, our shirts to be loose enough to hide our guts, and our sweaters to pull over our heads and stop somewhere around the waist.

Why then do designers, whether on the runways of Milan and London in early July or at the close of the designer collections in New York last week, think they’ve found a better way?

Whether the trousers were cigarette slim or billowy as a bedsheet, the most common length next year will be just above the ankle or at mid-calf, presumably because, as one fashion observer noted, “it is unequivocally the ugliest, geekiest, most embarrassing of all possible lengths.”

The second big news is what the Italians refer to as “the emptied jacket,” not because it is devoid of all the accouterments--keys, wallets, change--men store in their pockets. Instead, it has to do with the elimination of all the elements--fusings, linings, shoulder pads--that make a jacket, well, a jacket.

New York: While there was some debate that New York designers would rehash what was previously on the runways in Europe, no one defined the new shape in men’s slacks and sport coats next spring quite as well as Donna Karan, whose signature and DKNY collections offered everything from drawstring linen beach pants to casual cotton poplin and cotton/nylon slacks, many in clam-digger and flood-water lengths. She showed these with sheer T-shirts and jackets so light they could pass as windbreakers. To achieve this, Karan laser cuts the edges of heavy wool/nylon fabric and sculpts it into the A-shape of a man’s sports jacket or car coat. The laser cutting melts the nylon, which leaves a raw edge that needs no sewing. Inside, the jacket is virtually a shell, with pockets dangling in place and darts at the elbows for subtle detailing and, presumably, to aid movement.

As part of an “air and light” theme, Karan has also created a jacket made from four layers of rayon/linen, which was shown with puckered, gauzy sweaters, one made out of butter-soft spun stainless steel.

Gene Meyer, John Bartlett and Kenneth Cole used humor to get their points across. Meyer incorporated bright-colored circular prints on everything from short-sleeve shirts and ties to T-shirts. Some of those circles are filled with sequins, while others pinpoint nipples and bellybuttons.

Bartlett, whom many consider America’s answer to Gucci, opted for acid-colored hibiscus print pants worn low on the hips and high on the ankles because, after all, if they don’t work as pants, one can always paper the kitchen walls with them. In a collection partially referred to as “Hello Sailor meets Hello Kitty,” Bartlett does pseudo-sexual masculine shapes, such as snug-fitting continental slacks and trim-cut leather jackets, in bright, ‘70s disco colors like hot pink, lilac and lime.

Cole took his cue from his offbeat advertising campaign, employing a large screen to explain “70% of fashion show attendees kiss people they don’t even like . . . twice,” and “32% of women prefer shoe shopping to sex,” before parading down the runway his collection of skinny cargo slacks (some done in buff-colored suede), hooded zip-front cotton/nylon jackets, and guayabera-inspired day shirts. Retailers were impressed, saying it was one of the few collections real men might actually wear next year.

But the same could be said of the collections of Ralph Lauren, Nicole Farhi and Perry Ellis. Lauren is one of the few designers who likes real suits cut in typical British fashion. His new three-button version, with smaller chest and more natural shoulders, features classic ticket pockets and side seams, but updated in crisp white linen and silk Shantung. Produced under the designer’s Purple Label by Chester Barrie of London’s Savile Row, they are given the quintessential Lauren twist styled with tan-colored butter suede trench coats and three-quarter-length jackets every man wants to own.

Ditto for Nicole Farhi’s beautifully cut slacks and delicate knitwear so fine it had the look and texture of linen. And Ellis’ natural-colored linen/viscose tweed fabrics on cropped drawstring trousers, short-sleeve T-shirts and Eisenhower jackets were the perfect weight for California dreamin’.

Milan: Italian suitmakers have made an art out of deconstructing clothing, but Miuccia Prada and German Jil Sander are true minimalists whose less-is-more philosophy seems to mean the more you pay, the less they give you. This year, both have created stiff cotton canvas, shiny nylon and, in one instance, denim suits that were boxy and boardy with broad puckers of fabric under the arms.

Prada’s were shown with clam-diggers and flood-water pants because, hey, everyone else is doing it. He made one suit in mustard yellow, which may work on a roast beef sandwich, but I’ve never known it to be the most flattering color on a human being.

Sander’s delicate fine-gauge knits and casual sportswear, especially a pair of low-slung pants with adjustable tabs instead of belt loops, zip-front blouson jackets and very fine cotton long-sleeve shirts are clearly the designer’s strengths. Prada, whose strong point has always been technically innovative fabrics, made a noteworthy attempt at active clothes, including perforated nylon parkas and padded cotton shirts.

Calvin Klein, another minimalist showing in Milan for only the second time, also tried to turn his suits into active wear. The way to do that is to put drawstrings on everything--hidden inside jackets, at the bottom of short-sleeve shirts, at the waists of pull-on pants and even at the ankles of suit trousers. One editor accused Klein’s clothing of “having more strings attached than a Hollywood contract.”

One could take lessons from Giorgio Armani, who knows men don’t like designers to play with their suits. He makes changes that enhance rather than distract, in this case suits cut closer to the chest with narrowed lapels and a slightly higher button stance. Worn with cowl-neck sweaters instead of shirts and ties, they had a fresh, modern look. But it is with sweaters in his signature and his lower-priced Emporio collections that Armani made his strongest style statement. Although somewhat fey, these fine-gauge, short-sleeve crew necks are elongated and sometimes cut asymmetrically across the waist, while others provide “easy fly access” by scooping upward.

At Dolce & Gabbana, warped fabrics were sewn together at angles like the corners of a picture frame to create a subtle play of pattern; T-shirts were given extra-wide elastic bands at the sleeves; and jackets were styled so that colors graduate from light to dark as they move down the garment. While last season Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana claimed to be inspired by “the guys who squeegee your windshield at stoplights,” at least a portion of their spring collection--crisp cotton shirts splattered with paint--were inspired this time by someone with a paying job, perhaps a house painter.

D&G; wasn’t the only Italian label taking Rorschach to test however. Moschino showed cotton trench coats printed with wet spots on the shoulders and pants with faux mud at the cuffs to appear as if the wearer splashed his way through a puddle.

For the launch of his lower-priced GFF collection, Gianfranco Ferre was thinking more pool than puddle. He converted an Olympic-size swim stadium outside Milan into a runway and had models with “Willy Wonka”-inspired white Oompa Loompa eyebrows sashay in and around it. It’s questionable how many American men will wear Ferre’s version of the modern sweater, which essentially was one long band of black elastic wrapped bandage-like about the upper torso. But his sheer, vertically striped pullovers and navy-and-white French sailor-boy outfits might just play in Paris and Palm Springs. Or at least those wearing them will.

What Donatella Versace added to her late brother Gianni Versace’s sherbet-colored single button suits--sequins and rhinestones--were clearly not intended to shake free, unlike the tiny purple rocks that doubled as a runway at the Versace villa. Executives from Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue acknowledged that Versace’s runway is not reality. Only about 10% of what was shown will ever end up in retail stores.

With a running video of the Las Vegas strip as his backdrop and an Elvis theme, Gucci designer Tom Ford sent out models in snug knitwear and low-slung, baggy, purple, pale-blue and hot-pink flower-print pants, some with embroideries, feathers, beads and sequins. Elvis would probably shudder to see what they were paired with: crinkled khaki safari shirts, sleeveless pullovers and fine-gauge crew neck sweaters.

French designer Jean Paul Gaultier teased his audience with models in colored swimsuits barely covered with fishnet shorts; snug, horizontally striped tank tops worn over sleeveless vertically striped cotton shirts; and denim hot pants.

London: Italian suitmakers and American designers such as Ralph Lauren have been interpreting the British look for years, usually better than those who live it daily. So when it was announced that the United Kingdom would sponsor its first London Men’s Fashion Week in early July, the fashion press was ready to see just how the English planned to out-British themselves.

The bad news is many of England’s hot new breed of Savile Row tailors, including Mark Powell, Timothy Everest, Richard James and Ozwald Boateng, didn’t take part. Nor did established names like John Richmond, Paul Smith or Vivienne Westwood, who showed in Paris and Milan instead. But show organizer John Reilly was undaunted. As a result, some very fresh new menswear faces emerged.

It will take a few years for some of these labels to make it to America. But Designworks, a minimalist on a par with Prada and Helmut Lang, who has already developed a following in Japan, probably has the best chance. The collection features stiff, high-button jackets worn with matching cropped trousers that resemble rice-field workers’ garb. This line also has a classic element, visible in the designer’s finely tailored three-quarter coats and crisp cotton safari-style jackets teamed with trousers that, refreshingly, went all the way to the ground.

D.A. Lilliard, who operates a quirky shop in London’s Soho district, pairs his sculpted red suits with close-cropped hair dyed to match. Perhaps he was thinking of Dennis Rodman, who is one of Lilliard’s customers, along with hot young singers like Seal and Maxwell.

It’s hard to find anything wrong with a presentation that starts with a parade of models outfitted in crisp white suits and ends with two dozen muscular men in red-white-and-green color-blocked bathing briefs, a color reference to Italian designer Tullio Di Lorenzo’s origin. Unfortunately Di Lorenzo put too much filler in between, everything from tie-dyed T-shirts to funnel-neck jackets.

One British fashion editor referred to newcomer Ken Odimah’s style as “more Tarantino than John Wayne,” a reference to the “Steed Meets the Wild West” theme of the designer’s show. Odimah is more tailor than Texan, as evidenced by the designer’s collection of elegant, white-on-white and gray classic three- and four-button suits, most featuring high lapels and oversized, rounded patch pockets. Odimah does pair them, however, with red mini-houndstooth shirts that would be right at home at any Texas barbecue.

Good as many of these newer collections were, however, none are likely to ever enjoy Paul Costelloe’s clout. The long-established Irish designer, who has had a women’s wear line for 17 years and only recently launched menswear, already understands the concept of wearability in menswear. Long, ribbed, ivory-colored mock turtles worn with slouchy trousers, a pair of Keds and a soft leather bag tossed over the shoulder is a perfect example. By the way, while Costelloe’s name added some weight to the week, the designer himself was nowhere in sight. He was in Atlanta signing a $2-million deal to produce flight uniforms next year for Delta Airlines. So his next runway show may be 30,000 feet up.