At Ease, Menswear
What a difference a year makes. At this time last year, twice as many men’s collections were presented at the start of fashion week here. This go-round, there were barely enough showings to fill one day of the spring 2002 shows.
Has menswear worn out its welcome on the runways with no-shows from the once omnipresent Joseph Abboud, Perry Ellis, Max Azria, Ron Chereskin, Sean “P. Diddy/Puffy” Combs and others?
No, says menswear expert Tom Julian of Fallon Worldwide, a firm that analyzes fashion and trends for retailers. But he and others are concerned about the declining number of menswear designers participating at these biannual shows. “What we are seeing is that menswear has not performed as well as it did in the ‘90s because sportswear has saturated the market and there’s a lull in tailored clothing. This is not a time for trends to be over the top.”
Mindful of shoppers’ belt-tightening, the handful of men’s designers who showed last weekend offered pared-down traditional silhouettes and Ivy League-inspired looks. The attraction comes from earthy colors--not the feminine pastels of last spring--and unusual combinations of tops and bottoms rather than overly tight or baggy clothes, high-tech fabrics and the glitz of past seasons. With menswear sales in the doldrums so far this year--down 3% nationwide and more for department stores, designers appear to be playing it safe--with lots of white, seersucker and cotton. Classics stand to break the tide of terrible trends in the $52-billion menswear industry.
John Varvatos impeccable tailoring and signature mix of edge and ease were on target in his relaxed Ivy League-inspired collection that included rumpled shirts and jackets for the non-dry-cleaning kind of guy.
“This whole collection is about ease and versatility because guys don’t know what to do, especially when it comes to dressing down--they just don’t do it well,” he said about his non-runway presentation that featured a performance by singer Leona Naess.
His solution? Offer impeccably tailored, simple, elegant clothes that feel old and new at the same time and that can function as outerwear and office wear. Varvatos said he took his cues for spring from his own experiences of traveling and wanting clothes that can take him from a business meeting to a night out. Call it casual elegance, he said about his “season of the mix”: crinkled cotton striped shirts paired with a sleek suit in linen and cotton. Nappa leather jeans are softened by loose cotton voile white shirts.
Standouts are his lightweight denim suits, as well as other suits--all of them unconstructed, most of them two-buttoned and free of the traditional breast pocket--in natural linens, cottons and blends of both or blended with silk. Lightweight sweaters have crochet detailing, suede shirt-jackets are supple and trousers are plain-front. Colors, too, are natural and mostly the hues of stones mixed with black, navy and white.
“I get the sense that guys want to dress up again, but they don’t want skinny little trendy suits,” he said, concluding that maybe it’s time for designers “to engage men in focus groups or test garments on them” because men want “interesting and wearable clothes.”
Tommy Hilfiger continued to pull away from past hip-hop and glam rock offerings. He’s returned to his fashion roots with the sporty classics of Nantucket: slimmed-down silhouettes, crisp and clean whites, lots of red, white and blue Americana combinations and casual wear in Hawaiian prints.
His modern, masculine and very wearable collegiate look is still irreverent--an Ivy League preppy sensibility with a street-smart hipness demonstrated best with combinations such as a blue blazer teamed with a white button-down shirt, silk tie, nylon track pants and flip-flops.
“I don’t think in terms of outfits, but rather in terms of comfort and style,” he said after his show, adding that because men today are constantly on the go, they dress on the go as well, juxtaposing patterns and colors.
His pants are relaxed and ride at the hip; shirts are body-conscious but not fitted. Colors are bright, but not in-your-face: yellow, green, lilac, aqua and orange. And there’s lots of crisp white cotton, central to his collection including button-down shirts, preppy suits and 30-inch wide bell-bottoms. Hilfiger still likes his flash, but this time is minimal with a few rhinestone-studded logos on rugby shirts and reflective patches on jackets.
He said his collection is a step in the right direction for reviving the men’s shows under the tents at Bryant Park. “I’m going to be the catalyst for bringing it all back” because “this collection is for consumers. It’s about cleaning up fashion and making it interesting again.”
Los Angeles-based designer Andrew Dibben, who was a former design assistant to Helmut Lang and today operates a showroom and studio in Silver Lake, said men want clothes that are masculine, “not shiny stuff, not shirts and pants with Lycra in them,” which is why most of his garments are all cotton. “Guys want something new, but they also want clothes that are low-key.”
So for next spring, Dibben is offering a sensible--and intriguing--collection he describes as “surfer dude meets East L.A. look.” The line, called O.C.--for Orange County--includes black denim jeans, drawstring chino pants, skater shorts, hooded sweaters, short-sleeved rugby shirts and battered leather shirts and leather jackets with racing stripes on them.
Gene Meyer, known for his Day-Glo colors, presented a mix of brights but this time out he tamed a few hues. Though he calls some of his greens--as in a cotton and nylon zippered jacket--”drab,” they translate into safe and comfy just like his dark orange cotton corduroy trousers that looked like they could be a guy’s favorite pair of pants.
Meyer, whose last spring collection never made it into stores because his financial backers dropped their support, is back in business. And buyers in the audience were eager to fill racks with his designs: rear-flap pocketed denim jeans and others that were faded with unraveled hems and appeared as if they had just been taken out of the dryer, all warm and soft. But his appliqued suspender stripes on cotton shirts were the standouts on the runway.
John Bartlett’s installation at the Armory also featured stripes--as in black and white prison garb with stripes on trousers, shirts and jackets that stood out when spotlights on the presentation were switched off every few seconds. The cavernous space was then lit momentarily with black lights for a Dante’s “Inferno” effect as guests strolled around the maze, often bumping into each other.
A soundtrack of slamming prison doors and the rattle of chains repeatedly played as hunky models--all of them blindfolded--posed inside white-framed boxes in the homoerotic presentation. Some were chained to the cubes, others were nude from the waist up and several donned huge crucifixes on chains around their necks. A few had messages painted on their backs, such as “Violence is a calm that disturbs you,” “Where will you spend eternity?” and one model in high-waisted prison-striped pants, nipples exposed above a black tube top with the word “Agony”--depicting him as the prison’s boy toy--emblazoned across his chest.
Of course, for every agony there’s an ecstasy and in this case, Bartlett offered some nice pieces, including black leather guayabera shirts, suede jeans with black leather stripes, hand-painted T-shirts, sleeveless seersucker shirts, wool tuxedo trousers, and ticking on flared pants and short jackets.
But the best part of the show was Bartlett himself, serving as the installation’s centerpiece, unchained from his cube and on cue--and blindfolded--walking around in a circle to the eerie special effects and refusing to speak. Of course, he was the only one dressed in all white: a saint in a seersucker fitted shirt and cotton twill sailor pants.
The perfect jailhouse frock.
