After endlessly staring at the Men’s wear collection’s for the past couple of weeks, with London slowly upping their game, it’s safe to say that Milan was a massive BORE-OFF from me. Trying to analysis trends from the catwalks attempting to find something slightly redeeming past the obvious ‘prints’, Norman Bates suits, with a touch of ‘quirky’ (God, I hate that word) to only realise that all the pieces have already been done for decades and decades on end, and will most likely end up being copied by some ‘designers’ in Primark for the ladies section. Forgive me for being too harsh, but I need something inspiring. The world is boring as it is; High end designers creating, I mean replicating, ideas and concepts from each other purely to sell isn’t fashion forward. If anything it encourages other designers to do the same which will lead to everyone wearing a fashion uniform…oh wait that has already happened.
It is a difficult industry; that we all know. Can we be bombarded with any more fashion bashing movies and rumours of evil fashion editors, angry models and bastard photographers? WE GET IT! It’s tough! But it’s tough for one reason and one reason alone, money. Like any field in the art’s in today’s world, creativity will get you nowhere unless you have the knowhow of money making. So the simplest thing for designers to do is to make something that will please the masses and more importantly, sell.
The alright ones copy and put their ‘twist’ on things, but the great ones create and experiment. So it’s off to Paris we go where the FANTASTIC Dries Van Noten comes in. I cannot stress how much talent Dries brings to the fashion industry. Always inspired by his surroundings; one of the few designers that takes art and turns it into his own form never losing his aesthetic and identity.
Here’s some of our favourite looks from the collection:
Loose fitting, tight, structured, tailored, casual, block, camouflage, tartan, dark, bright, knit, plastic this collection has everything but all done in a cohesive way which not a lot of people can do. I defy anyone to look through this collection and not like at least one piece.
Dries does please the masses, but on his own accord. Forward thinking and experimenting keeping silhouettes that are close to home and considered safe to a lot of men.
The use of camouflage is what interests me the most. As if he was talking about the fight for men’s fashion, struggling to survive in what is essentially an industry dominated by women. It’s alright for women to have all shapes, colours, styles etc. but to be a ‘proper man’ you must be wearing tailored suits on your way to work or look like a grubby mountain climber in functional outerwear. Camping up the camouflage by creating tailored suits, layered with plastic trenches excites me; yes for my own personal taste, but it also speaks about the evolution of men’s fashion.
The great designers are artists, so following trends isn’t what it’s about for them. They tell you a story that is evoked through what they create and the greatest story teller so far in this year’s predictable men’s fashion week has been Dries Van Noten. But there are still a few more players in the game (Anne Demeulemeester and Thierry Mugler) let’s see who has the best happy ending.
