FASHION BUSINESS
Ordinary Working
Class grabs Menswear’s fancy
To p 5 P r i n t s a n d F a b r i c s f r o m M e n ’s S p r i n g / S u m m e r 2 0 1 8 c o l l e c t i o n
Menswear shows just finished the touch down in the French
capital and looking back at all the collections makes us
quite dubious about what’s in store for Spring/Summer
2018. The notion of bending gender delineations has
definitively come to the forefront in men’s fashion and
designers have showcased surprisingly wearable collections
through this season. The approach is more back-to-basics
than ever; however, reinventing the same classics with
an urban streetwear touch and not holding back on any
femininity which can be called the theme of the season for
our boys.
When it comes to prints, it seems like every designer has
plenty of tricks in their bags – from continuing the slogan
rage of last season and reinventing their own brand
logos to watercolour flowers and hearty leitmotifs, there
is a print for every pauper this season. Sunil Kokare,
Opera Clothing, elaborates on the season’s prints: “There
is a huge variety in the patterning demands for Spring/
Summer 2018. We are working on everything from digital
to yarn dyed prints making motifs like florals, geometrics or
just abstract pigmented pieces. While the fabrics are called
basics, the type of work buyers are getting done from India
is very detail-specific as it seems like all the production of
blanks has moved on to Bangladesh due to competitive
costing.”
Taking up a very no holds barred approach, the designers
are working on simplistic fabrics like cotton poplins or
even woollen blends and are going crazy with silhouettes
and prints to create truly ground-breaking versions of
our favourite bestselling styles. Even so, perhaps the
most laudable feature of menswear this season was the
casting of extremely diverse and unconventional models
that bestowed a sense of reality upon the clothing. The
collections danced the line between corporate boys and
corporate boys on vacation so beautifully that we can
almost forget how confused the direction of trends was
looking this season. Spearheaded by designers like Demna
Gvasalia who drew inspirations from typical dad-type outfits
for Balenciaga and went photographing common people
on the streets for his Vetements catalogue – the ‘ugly
fashion’ movement is in full swing.
While we get amply distracted by the ongoing haute
couture shows in Paris and await the conclusion of men’s
fashion season in New York, here are some of the hottest
trends in prints and fabrics that we believe will go strong
for men’s apparel in Spring/Summer 2018.
44 Apparel Online India |
JULY 16-31, 2017 | www.apparelresources.com
With retailers
attributing menswear
its own rhythmic
attitude and specific
trends, men’s
collections are finally
at the centre stage
in fashion apparel,
and designers seem
to still be trying to
understand which
tone they would like to
adopt for this blooming
market.
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1. STRAPPING STRIPES
As the world tries to break walls and
forge friendships beyond hypothetical
barbed wires, the storyline of Boyne’s
Holocaust novel, The Boy in the
Striped Pyjamas, feels more relevant
than ever. As if directly taking 8-year
old Bruno from Nazi Germany as a
muse, designers are presenting overall
striped outfits, which take multiple
directions and sometimes multiple
thicknesses and line quality.
Creating multitudes of layering in
linear goodness are brands like
Haider Ackermann with his slim fitted
pant suit in monochrome artisanal
stripes and Topman’s various
shades of grey awning stripes on
wrap jackets.
2. SURFING PARADISE
Summer is synonymous with spring
break and vacations by the beach. So
to provide you with the right sartorial
garbs for holidaying in 2018, designers
are presenting various takes on the
atypical Hawaiian shirt. Perhaps the
muse here is Charlie Sheen, as we
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