http://iht.com/articles/2005/01/17/opinion/rvirile.html
By Rebecca Voight International Herald Tribune
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
PARIS
Ties? Did you say ties? That save-it-for-dad accessory is looming on the menswear horizon like the next big thing.
.
Designers have injected a new elegance in their collections. And for a young generation convinced that jeans, T-shirts and sneakers would see them through life, a jacket is becoming quite desirable, even indispensable. Brioni, the master Italian tailor, is hot.
.
There are bright blazers at Burberry Prorsum and rocker tuxedo jackets at Dior Homme. For Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs has fashioned a luxurious collection for modern swells. And Raf Simons shows ties with everything, including a suit composed of a razor-sharp jacket and athletic "astronaut" pants that looks like a space age biker.
.
"I've never been interested in designing power suits," says the Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane. "Elegance is a progressive concept, but it can often be archaic. I think dress shirts and dressy shoes are much more interesting at nine in the morning."
.
Although Marc Jacobs says he is personally happy in loose-fitting trousers, sneakers and a sweater, Louis Vuitton this spring is so polished it's almost utopian. Or rather Etonian, as in classic British schoolboy. "We're trying to develop a bit of eclecticism in the menswear, which I think we've achieved already for women," says Jacobs. "The collection is world-weary, decadent, spoiled and a bit poncey, like Manolo Blahnik in the '70s. I think men, whether they are homosexual, heterosexual or metrosexual, are confident enough in their virility to dress any way they want to."
.
Maria Luisa Poumaillou switched gears six months ago. Sales for designer sportswear were flat at her trendy Paris menswear shop, Maria Luisa, and she was fed up with blousons and T-shirts that weren't selling. "I ordered Martin Margiela's new 14 line which includes hand-finished suits and shirts rather than his casual vintage looks. And I went to Brioni. The collection arrived early in December and it's been selling well. My customer is ready for a €3,000 suit [or $3,900, Brioni's opening price], Ballantyne cashmere sweater and sleek shoes from Pierre Hardy." Of course this is Paris and Maria Luisa's man is more Left Bank dandy than Wall Street banker.
.
Dan Peres, editor in chief of Details, the American men's fashion monthly, can wear pretty much anything he wants to work. Last summer that meant shirts untucked and Converse sneakers. Not anymore. Three months ago, Details ran a piece entitled "Chuck Your Chucks" in reference to Converse's Chuck Taylor All Star sneaker, to encourage readers to stop living in them.
.
Peres says that "35-year-old men should be grown-up; we need to clean up our act." The editor who once wore a suit no more than once or twice a month is now tailored twice a week. "I'm even starting to wear a tie," he admits.
.
Peres thinks the shift runs deeper than fashion. "Men are becoming more conservative. You can also see it in grooming. There's no more stubble."
.
The Belgian designer Raf Simons presented one of his strongest collections for spring. "This is my 10th year in business. I was pushing myself too hard to change every season, just for the sake of change. I've worked with a lot of the same models since they were 16, and they've become friends. Now they've grown up and have jobs. They're asking me for the kind of jackets I made early on."
.
Simons says what interests him now is to work on proportions and volume, rather than surface details, and to grow his business. He has signed up with Futurenet, a subsidiary of his Japanese distributor Mitsui, to handle sales directly in Milan, Berlin and London.
.
"Men's clothes are starting to look more grown-up; it's more about a man than a boy," says Armand Limnander, editor of Vman, a men's magazine. Limnander cites Thom Browne as a designer whose tailoring is more of a style impulse than a necessity for those who buy it.
.
Browne's quirky classics evoke old photographs of natty dressers in the late '50s and '60s when jackets were short and pants were narrow. The U.S. designer's label has been an instant hit with fashionable men who like well-cut tailoring and everything that goes with it.
.
"This is just who I am," says Browne. "I think men's clothes should be effortless, like a uniform, but with quality. Browne is into classic American men's style in the early Brooks Brothers vein and most of his collection is made in the United States. It's elegant, but not too formal. He makes a French cuff shirt to wear with cuff links, but he likes it wrinkled. This fall he hopes to fill a void on the market for classic wing tip shoes.
.
For Gert Jonkers and Jop van Bennekom, editor partners in Fantastic Man, the international menswear magazine that will be launched this spring, men are dressing up. "We're interested in what individuals over 30 are wearing, not 16-year-olds who look good in T-shirts anyway," says Jonkers, adding that "the magazine is about personal style and dandyism."
.
But even casual clothes are shaping up. Kim Jones, the English designer in his third season, produces very pared down, clean and elegant sportswear from outdoor jeans and sweaters to suits. Jones started designing for the British mass maker Umbro straight after college and has continued with the brand since launching his own label. "I don't like fussy clothes," he says. "I think about the overall image and then design the individual pieces to form an identity."
.
Jones is also doing fast fashion for Topman and has just completed a collection for Comme des Garçons' Dover St. Market in London inspired by his personal collection of clothes belonging to the performance artist Leigh Bowery.
.
Elegance may be back, but it's not the staid, gray-haired variety. Be it suits or shirttails, youth ultimately is what inspires designers. "There's a whole generation of young men with a very specific allure," says Slimane. "You have to subvert proportions to suit them. And so there's no such thing as a classic, only classics for a time."
.
By Rebecca Voight International Herald Tribune
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
PARIS
Ties? Did you say ties? That save-it-for-dad accessory is looming on the menswear horizon like the next big thing.
.
Designers have injected a new elegance in their collections. And for a young generation convinced that jeans, T-shirts and sneakers would see them through life, a jacket is becoming quite desirable, even indispensable. Brioni, the master Italian tailor, is hot.
.
There are bright blazers at Burberry Prorsum and rocker tuxedo jackets at Dior Homme. For Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs has fashioned a luxurious collection for modern swells. And Raf Simons shows ties with everything, including a suit composed of a razor-sharp jacket and athletic "astronaut" pants that looks like a space age biker.
.
"I've never been interested in designing power suits," says the Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane. "Elegance is a progressive concept, but it can often be archaic. I think dress shirts and dressy shoes are much more interesting at nine in the morning."
.
Although Marc Jacobs says he is personally happy in loose-fitting trousers, sneakers and a sweater, Louis Vuitton this spring is so polished it's almost utopian. Or rather Etonian, as in classic British schoolboy. "We're trying to develop a bit of eclecticism in the menswear, which I think we've achieved already for women," says Jacobs. "The collection is world-weary, decadent, spoiled and a bit poncey, like Manolo Blahnik in the '70s. I think men, whether they are homosexual, heterosexual or metrosexual, are confident enough in their virility to dress any way they want to."
.
Maria Luisa Poumaillou switched gears six months ago. Sales for designer sportswear were flat at her trendy Paris menswear shop, Maria Luisa, and she was fed up with blousons and T-shirts that weren't selling. "I ordered Martin Margiela's new 14 line which includes hand-finished suits and shirts rather than his casual vintage looks. And I went to Brioni. The collection arrived early in December and it's been selling well. My customer is ready for a €3,000 suit [or $3,900, Brioni's opening price], Ballantyne cashmere sweater and sleek shoes from Pierre Hardy." Of course this is Paris and Maria Luisa's man is more Left Bank dandy than Wall Street banker.
.
Dan Peres, editor in chief of Details, the American men's fashion monthly, can wear pretty much anything he wants to work. Last summer that meant shirts untucked and Converse sneakers. Not anymore. Three months ago, Details ran a piece entitled "Chuck Your Chucks" in reference to Converse's Chuck Taylor All Star sneaker, to encourage readers to stop living in them.
.
Peres says that "35-year-old men should be grown-up; we need to clean up our act." The editor who once wore a suit no more than once or twice a month is now tailored twice a week. "I'm even starting to wear a tie," he admits.
.
Peres thinks the shift runs deeper than fashion. "Men are becoming more conservative. You can also see it in grooming. There's no more stubble."
.
The Belgian designer Raf Simons presented one of his strongest collections for spring. "This is my 10th year in business. I was pushing myself too hard to change every season, just for the sake of change. I've worked with a lot of the same models since they were 16, and they've become friends. Now they've grown up and have jobs. They're asking me for the kind of jackets I made early on."
.
Simons says what interests him now is to work on proportions and volume, rather than surface details, and to grow his business. He has signed up with Futurenet, a subsidiary of his Japanese distributor Mitsui, to handle sales directly in Milan, Berlin and London.
.
"Men's clothes are starting to look more grown-up; it's more about a man than a boy," says Armand Limnander, editor of Vman, a men's magazine. Limnander cites Thom Browne as a designer whose tailoring is more of a style impulse than a necessity for those who buy it.
.
Browne's quirky classics evoke old photographs of natty dressers in the late '50s and '60s when jackets were short and pants were narrow. The U.S. designer's label has been an instant hit with fashionable men who like well-cut tailoring and everything that goes with it.
.
"This is just who I am," says Browne. "I think men's clothes should be effortless, like a uniform, but with quality. Browne is into classic American men's style in the early Brooks Brothers vein and most of his collection is made in the United States. It's elegant, but not too formal. He makes a French cuff shirt to wear with cuff links, but he likes it wrinkled. This fall he hopes to fill a void on the market for classic wing tip shoes.
.
For Gert Jonkers and Jop van Bennekom, editor partners in Fantastic Man, the international menswear magazine that will be launched this spring, men are dressing up. "We're interested in what individuals over 30 are wearing, not 16-year-olds who look good in T-shirts anyway," says Jonkers, adding that "the magazine is about personal style and dandyism."
.
But even casual clothes are shaping up. Kim Jones, the English designer in his third season, produces very pared down, clean and elegant sportswear from outdoor jeans and sweaters to suits. Jones started designing for the British mass maker Umbro straight after college and has continued with the brand since launching his own label. "I don't like fussy clothes," he says. "I think about the overall image and then design the individual pieces to form an identity."
.
Jones is also doing fast fashion for Topman and has just completed a collection for Comme des Garçons' Dover St. Market in London inspired by his personal collection of clothes belonging to the performance artist Leigh Bowery.
.
Elegance may be back, but it's not the staid, gray-haired variety. Be it suits or shirttails, youth ultimately is what inspires designers. "There's a whole generation of young men with a very specific allure," says Slimane. "You have to subvert proportions to suit them. And so there's no such thing as a classic, only classics for a time."
.
