Paris menswear fashion show trends
— While the recently concluded Milan menswear shows were nearly universal in going for the light — the easy, breezy fabrics, the white and sun-bleached khaki colorways, and the notion of traveling unencumbered — there was no such unifying theme to come out of the runways in Paris. But there were some noteworthy trends that rippled through last month’s disparate collections of menswear that will probably be seen on the streets when these designer collections hit retail nine months from now. Among them:
Blue man group
Blue, traditionally a popular color in menswear (because it sells well) went vivid this season. The ranks of navy blues were joined by nearly electric hues both in Milan (Prada, Dsquared and Roberto Cavalli, to name three) and Paris where Viktor & Rolf Monsieur brightened an otherwise muted palette with pops of turquoise on plaid and allover patterned shirts, on shoes and on belts, and Yohji Yamamoto gave us a completely head-to-toe powder blue boy — from unstructured jacket and floppy bow at the neck all the way down to matching socks and shoes.
Adam Kimmel’s Snoop Dogg-inspired collection was shot through with blue — on cashmere sweater football jerseys, letterman-style jackets and wide, peak lapel suits, as well as a custom blue bandana print lining on suits, hoodies and drawstring trousers (a reference to the use of a blue bandana as a sign of affiliation with the Crips gang).
Louis Vuitton’s “digital bohemian” themed collection put tattoo-blue designs (including animal symbols from the Chinese zodiac) interpreted by New York inkslinger Scott Campbell on models (temporarily) and leather bags, trousers, cotton voile shirts and scarves (permanently), while brighter shades were used for an eye-catching version of LV’s Damier checkerboard pattern on a nylon duffle bags.
Space trippy
Vivienne Westwood seemed to be in her own orbit with starscape spangled jeans, jackets, T-shirts and swim trunks in Milan, but after seeing Thom Browne’s space odyssey (see main bar) and Paul Smith’s “cosmic rocker” collection in Paris, there was definitely a sense that some designers were headed into outer space for spring-summer 2011.
Smith, who cited the band Led Zeppelin as inspiration, filled his runway with trippy tie-dye/watercolor designs scattered with geometric and planetary symbols, silver-gray outerwear pieces and sport coats with a sheen that fell somewhere between sharkskin and Tin Woodsman, and skinny trousers speckled with a galaxy of micro stars. And while the Zep might have gotten top billing, the isosceles triangles dangling from necklaces and printed on T-shirts called to mind the famous album cover art of another British band — Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.”
Jean Paul Gaultier’s show was themed like a scene out of a Turkish bath, but the planets seemed aligned for a solar system’s worth of billowing silk ponchos, robes, denim jackets and jeans with crescent moons, falling stars and orbiting planets leaping out of three-dimensional designs (provided the audience was wearing their show invites — which were printed on pairs of disposable 3-D glasses).
Follicular Fashion
Maybe it’s the natural progression of the whole urban woodsman trend, or simply shorthand for the new dapper disheveled aesthetic, but there were noticeably more mustachioed models and beard-bearing boys on the runway than for any season in recent memory.
Shaggy models strode the runway at Bottega Veneta in Milan, Jean Paul Gaultier and Paul Smith in Paris. And for Yohji Yamamoto’s return to the Paris runway circuit after two seasons of appointment showing, he included a handful of models who looked like they hadn’t shaved since the designer’s last runway show, with one redheaded model sporting a glorious walrus-like cookie duster that made him easy to spot at a handful of other subsequent shows, including Paul Smith and Junya Watanabe Homme Plus.
