Editor Teo van den Broeke dissects next season ’ s suit trends and highlights the deconstructed , yet elegant sports-inspired tailoring seen on the AW16 catwalks in London , Milan and Paris
season OF CHANGE
WORDS TEO VAN DEN BROEKE
PHOTOGRAPHS JONATHAN PRYCE DANIEL & WILLIAM YAN
Editor Teo van den Broeke dissects next season ’ s suit trends and highlights the deconstructed , yet elegant sports-inspired tailoring seen on the AW16 catwalks in London , Milan and Paris
Men ’ s fashion weeks are funny things . Firstly , they rarely last a week . Instead they tend to span three or four days , incorporating back-to-back fashion shows , presentations and cocktail parties , hosted by countless brands clamouring to fly their shirts , trousers and jackets above the menswear parapet .
What ’ s more , where women ’ s fashion weeks come injected with all the drama and fabulousness you ’ d expect , the men ’ s equivalents tend to exist as more sober affairs — populated by fewer birds of paradise , but full to bursting with more trussed-up peacocks than you can shake a tail feather at .
The Autumn Winter 2016 menswear collections , shown in London , Paris and Milan back in January were a case in point . Putting aside the fact that the shows kicked off a mere week after the Christmas break , which means all the editors and buyers tend to be a bit grumpy from the get go , the mood was rather more subdued than usual .
For my money , though , that wasn ’ t really a bad thing . In the world of menswear — a place where subtleties such as stitch details , fabric weights and tonal contrasts really matter — ‘ subdued ’ can actually translate to ‘ confident ’. The clothes on show felt wearable , grown up , less tricksy than in previous seasons and , in all , very wearable indeed .
The first stop on the menswear merry-go-round was London . Famously the slightly wonky corner of the fashion triumvirate , London Collections Men ( as London men ’ s fashion week is known ) consists of two very distinct factions . First there is the group of young , avant-garde designers led by the likes of Craig Green and Bobby Abley , who grab headlines with their envelope-pushing creations ( think baseball caps complete with Mickey Mouse ears and high-fashion dental dams ). On the other hand , there are the tailors — London ’ s historic houses that , season after season produce modern , luxurious clothing to rival the stuff seen in Florence and Milan . It ’ s from these seasoned cutters , in my opinion , that the best clothing comes .
At Gieves & Hawkes Jason Basmajian showed his final collection for the label before his defection to Cerruti 1881 . A sumptuous swan song , Basmajian ’ s collection riffed on themes set out in previous seasons . Though sharp tailoring with a modern shoulder and slim leg sits at the heart of Basmajian ’ s aesthetic , interest came in his clever use of texture . In addition to classic flannels and poplins , flecked wool crew necks , textured overcoats and spongy shearlings were dotted throughout .
The general mood in menswear right now is one that craves comfort and understatement . After a decade dominated by tie bars , double Windsors and fussy pocket squares , subdued elegance is the order of the day . This was as palpable in Basmajian ’ s collection as it was in Carlo Brandelli ’ s for Kilgour . Famed for his academic approach to tailoring , Brandelli showed suits that featured conceptual lapels — inverted and shawl — cut from fabrics more commonly associated with casual wear , such as jersey and perforated suede .
Similarly , dotted among the perfectly cut double and single-breasted suits at Dunhill , it was ( departing ) creative director John Ray ’ s more
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