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Tuesday 17 January 2012

Fall Menswear 2012: Alexander McQueen, Prada, Gucci, Ferragamo and more.

Alexander McQueen
Knee-breeches are the best. I've been wearing them, or variants thereof, for a while now, and eagerly await the moment when Tudor pantaloons come back into style. (I can dream, OK?) So it's time once again for me to be smug about spotting an upcoming trend in advance, and/or using my pattern-recognition skills to twist reality to fit with my desired worldview.
This season's McQueen menswear doesn't reach the lofty heights of the label's recent womenswear collections -- what could? -- but it's buoyed up by a surprising amount of personality for what's essentially another riff on the classic suit. And even though McQueen chose to go for a photoshoot rather than a runway show this season, the modeling choices are interesting in themselves -- no typically lanky, beanpole-like male models here, plus some of the poses hint towards not androgyny (that staple of all high-end fashion) but a certain femininity.


I particularly like the outfit below since it's more or less a typical city banker suit, except breeches instead of trousers. It illustrates how easy it'd be to transition from a typical trouser to this -- although I'm aware that many people will still think it looks dumb.
Bottega Veneta
Trussardi
Trussardi gets a [dis]honourable mention here since their show was, to me, so comedically unappealing. The theme appeared to be "skeezy Starsky & Hutch villain", to which inspiration they brought such marvels as this:
He's stolen your baby and it's in his bag right now.
And this douchebag, whose outfit isn't actually so bad (although it does look like an action-comedy costume, thanks to the colour-scheme), but who appears to be carrying a... bottle... of urine...?
No, seriously, I have no idea.
Salvatore Ferragamo
Ferragamo, along with Ermenegildo Zegna, is one of the finest designers of razor-sharp but ultimately boring menswear. Fantastic to look at, and reeking of style, but not exactly groundbreaking or imaginative. The way I judged this particular show was, "Would Magneto wear this?" since the combination of dark, slim jackets, turtleneck sweaters and purple made me think of Michael Fassbender's wardrobe in X-Men: First Class.
In the following picture, I like to imagine that the pouch on his belt is for snacks. @zanzando suggested on Twitter that he'd use it to transport metal balls for weaponry emergencies, but in my opinion Magneto doesn't need a bag for that, so snacks it is. Cookies, baked incompetently by Charles Xavier because they are buddies and the sequel to X-Men: First Class is totally going to be all about them running a mutant school together. Right? Right.
Moncler Gamme Bleu
Another year, another marvel. Last season it was fencing; this year its Formula 1 drivers. This show wasn't quite up to the level of Spring's opaque masks or faux body-armour with random straps all over it, but a valient effort was made nonetheless.
Moncler Gamme Bleu is one of those Zoolander-esque designers whose customer base I can never quite divine. Evidently they must be doing well since they manage to keep on creating such bizarre and niche designs -- shown on the runway at Fashion Week, no less -- during this economic climate, but how? Who wears it? Maybe it looks less baffling when you're only wearing one item instead of the entire outfit of padded red nylon?
But why is he carrying a blanket?
Prada
Prada did well this season, gimmick-wise, by hiring a mixture of male models and familiar faces for their show. The clothes were underwhelming in my opinion, but the gimmick worked because: Gary Oldman. Gary Oldman! He is reason enough, my friends. Also on the catwalk were Jamie Bell (who tweeted an adorable fanboy message about meeting G. Oldman, I noticed.), Willem Dafoe and Adrien Brodie.

This jacket is too tight.
Miuccia Prada was evident in the details, such as the colourful designs on the accessories, but aside from that the collection was largely old-fashioned yet decidedly run-of-the-mill coats and suits. The shoes, socks, and sunglasses were the main highlight, for me.
My main reason for including this next guy is because I liked his name so much: Bernd Sassmannscausen. Plus his facial expression, which suggests that he's about to Voldemort all over the place.

Gary Oldman!
Jamie Bell's outfit confused me a little, since the waistcoat blended so closely into the shirt and show every sign of being tucked into his trousers. It makes his torso look oddly bandaged, and bulkier than expected.
Gucci
The fit of the suits in Gucci ran extremely slim this season. So slim, in fact, that the trousers all had to have zips at the ankles. But the focus was on fabric choices, from gaudy velvet flocking to iridescent geometric patterns to murky, almost blurred floral prints. I'm not sure if it was successful in most cases, though, especially if worn in a non-fashion context.

13 comments:

  1. hahah, Prada and Gary Oldman^^. Some of the Prada tings are a bit 'what would Doctor Who wear?' or 'what would Doctor who wear to an odd dinner party'? I like though:)

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  2. Garay Oldman just made Prada win over fashion week lol
    I was a bit surprised by Adrien Brody's appearance on Prada's runway though. I thought he has like..lifetime contract with Zegna (which was marvellous in a way. He will always be the face of Zegna in my head)

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  3. When I saw pics of the Prada show, I was just waiting for you to cover it. XD

    Maybe nipple jackets will become a thing. And those shoes with flowers tacked on reminded me of croc decorations you put in the holes. Very cute though.

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  4. the video that is TOTALLY REVELANT BECAUSE... GARY OLDMAN! WILLEM DAFOE! ADRIEN BRODY! WALKING! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g5afdxnd7-g&fb_source=message

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  5. well... TBH anything with a long coat like that is reminiscent of the Doctor, don't you think? (maybe we are both just desperate for more doctor who...)

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  6. i love that gary oldman did this INSTEAD OF THE GOLDEN GLOBES. he don't give a shit. ;DD

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  7. You mean the super-tight jacket? ;)) gah

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  8. i sort of love how completely terrible garrett hedlund is. WORST MODEL EVERRR.

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  9. I have never in my life been interested in fashion or even in clothing - I'm more of the Sarah Lund type, as in clothing is just something I have to deal with due to weather and social norms that declare we shall not walk about in public naked.

    But! But! You have convinced me! Fashion is awesome and fascinating. And there is so much variation and subtlety that I never noticed before. You have sucked me in and now I can't stop reading your blog. Also, you have now forced me to watch The Killing, so thanks for that.*

    *Please note: This is a non-sarcastic thanks.

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  10. Thank you so much! I love this comment -- it's so great whenever anyone who doesn't like "fashion" likes this blog, because I kind of aim it at people who don't care about Vogue, etc. I find that most popular fashion blogs are either run by people who can afford access to high-end fashion themselves or who are directly emulating the (highly irritating and rather florid) writing style of legit fashion magazines, which seems sort of pointless to me.

    p.s. the killing is awesome. i've started watching Borgen, a political show by the same producers, and while it's not quite as good (in that it follows a more typical TV episode formula, similar to the West Wing) it's still brilliant -- you might like that too.

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  11. also, regarding "not being interested in fashion" -- i quite often get comments like this, and it makes me think that peoples' attitude towards costume in pop culture is wayyyy off from the way people view other aspects of TV/filmmaking. people can be critical and/or fans of acting, or directing, or animation and not be actors etc themselves, but because costuming is more... obvious, I suppose, in that it's all about appearance... people tend to say things like, "but I only ever wear jeans so I can't think about this". Which isn't a criticism of people who don't care about costumes, or of people who only wear jeans -- it just seems like costuming is something people habitually overlook because they assume it can't be interesting to think about clothes in the abstract if you don't have any interest in them in a more practical, personal sense.

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  12. Imparare a costruire conversazione è la chiave del successo cold calling. Impegnarsi in una conversazione dovrebbe essere naturale come chiamare un amico. Il vostro obiettivo è quello di costruire la fiducia nella tua chiamata in modo che la vostra prospettiva sente a suo agio a conversare con voi piuttosto che cercare di concentrarsi su come ottenere è spegnere il Moncler Spaccio.
    w

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  13. Imparare a costruire conversazione è la chiave del successo cold calling. Impegnarsi in una conversazione dovrebbe essere naturale come chiamare un amico. Il vostro obiettivo è quello di costruire la fiducia nella tua chiamata in modo che la vostra prospettiva sente a suo agio a conversare con voi piuttosto che cercare di concentrarsi su come ottenere è spegnere il Moncler Spaccio.
    n

    ReplyDelete