Fashion Statement: Which clothes maketh the man?
Studded collars, fishnet socks and military wear … Kate Carter unearths new menswear trends at London fashion week
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What happened at the menswear shows?
Wednesday was menswear day at London fashion week – or MAN day, as Topshop prefers to call it. Somehow Fashion Statement can’t read that without adopting its best Lord of the Rings voice: “Welcome to the day of MAN, children of the earth, for soon, their time will be past …” Anyway, if yesterday is any guide, the future for menswear will involve leather studded collars (isn’t that Orc-wear rather than menswear?), metallic boiler suits and fishnet socks. What do you mean, that sounds ridiculous? Have you seen what we women have to put up with?Carolyn Massey’s show was based on an “anonymous donation” of military patterns. FS spent the show wondering who the hell anonymously donates military patterns. Ex-Soviet dictators with wardrobe space issues? FS also pondered the fusion of deconstructed military and fishnet socks. Can you march in fishnet socks? Could this actually be the key to world peace?
Alas for FS’s Nobel prize, we were interrupted by JW Anderson, which, according to our notes, was “Westwood lite” – but we meant it in a nice way, honest. Think lots of plaid, distressed denim, studs … or as Lee Douros, menswear buyer at my-wardrobe.com, put it: “There’s a 90s grunge feeling to this collection”. Meanwhile, over at Christopher Shannon it was “ski meets streetwear”. Douros’s top piece from the collection was the Arctic puffa. Can’t we start an Arctic puffin trend instead?
Then it was over to the Vauxhall Fashion Scout venue to see Komakino, where FS was immediately smitten by the designer’s show notes. This season’s collection was “inspired by the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus”, which got us wondering whether there is a blog out there collecting hilariously pretentious show notes. Apparently Heraclitus was a proto-goth and wore a lot of black and DM boots. Who knew? Teasing (affectionate, we promise) aside, we actually loved this collection, from the beautifully cut jackets to the customised boots that sent us into nostalgic recollections of our lost youth.
The day also saw collections by Topman’s designers (gimp masks, eye-bleedingly bright parkas, trackie trousers) and James Long, who had a particularly fine collection full of greatcoats (more military, natch) and corduroy. Judging by Douros’s reaction, these will be appearing on my-wardrobe soon …
So what did all of this tell us about menswear trends? By autumn you’ll all be wearing wimples and living in a dungeon, chaps. Don’t shoot the messenger.