It comes as no surprise to people around me that I'm a fashion enthusiast. Mostly because I like arts in general. Unfortunately, for all the things I like, I can practice none of them. I can't sing/play instruments, I can't draw, paint or sculpt, and I'm no good at creative writting either. I do however think I have a keen sense of style and know how to put outfits together effortlessly. Not to brag, but I'm pretty sure I can perfectly blend with the Parisians, Italiens, and Englishmen. So obviously, men.style.com is one of my favorite sites because you get virtual front row seats to the latest shows in New York, Paris, Milan and London. Aside from providing show coverages, it's a great source of fashion journalism and style advice for men, which doesn't diminish one's mascunality, but rather improves one's self-esteem through updated personal physical appearance. We're currently in the midst of mens Spring/Summer 2010 fashion week in Paris and Milan, and curious as I am, I had to check out what are the new trends walking down the runway that rich people can afford. It took a good amount of my lonely night, but I was able to go through most of them and make a list of my favorite collections.
Even though I highly respect a designer's creative point of view about fashion and style, I don't necessarily like most of the things that come down the runway, just because it's simply not wearable in real life. For the amount of men on this planet, I'm sure there is only a very minimilistic portion of us that are willing to wear drop-crotch pants and fishnet top in the middle of the day in urban America. So I personally "judge" collections in terms of wearability and styling and that each pieces can be worn individually anywhere in the world, be it Paris, Tokyo or freakin' Arkansas; that there's something for someone. With that being said, here, in a decrescendo order, my favorite collections.
Junya Watanabe. I was delightfully surprised by Junya Watanabe this season. He is moslty known to be the protégé of Japanese avant-garde designer Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçon, and he has since started his own line. For being a Japanese designer, his spring collection is very 1930-1940s American style-inspired, but with bright colors and crazy-ass plaid patterns. The blazers looks very well constructed and I would not mind wearing any of these. The dirty-washed jeans also look pretty nice. It's very urban and young, and when topped with those aformentionned blazers, the overall look is very cool. Like he's too cool for school. I like.
Burberry Prorsum. I've recently become a fan of Christoper Bailey. He's like the perfect incarnation of what modern an English man is and his clothes really reflect the refineness of english fashion, and basically english everything. His line of modernized classic Burberry trenchcoats never cease to amaze me, I have the goal of owning one of these babies one day. But the clothes underneath these great coats are equally nice. The whole random belts coming from everywhere around the torso gives a bit of an edge to a company that is so wholesome and traditional. I cannot understand the life of me why Christopher would implement winter parkas in his Spring collection, but it surprisingly works and I hardly doubt they are as warm as North Face or Canada Goose parkas, they look much nicer than the latter. For a light winter in New York or Vancouver, these coats will look pretty decent in the city.
Louis Vuitton. I'm always very so-so with Louis Vuitton menswear. Just because I don't really associate Louis Vuitton with clothes, even though it has expanded into clothing a long while ago. I think Louis Vuitton makes the most extraordinary luggages, travel/duffel bags, handbags, wallets because of the crafstmenship involved in every of these leather accessories. It has afterall being alive since 1854; has got to give credit where it is due. However, I have yet to be impressed with the clothes. But this spring collection is actually pleasent, even if the shorts are *too* short for men to wear. It is colorful, light, and can translate well for the city, and the country side/beach as well. It has a very "summer in The Hamptons" look and feel to it. I think Paul Helbers did a good job, and if Marc Jacobs approves then I guess no one can really say the contrary.
Bottega Veneta. Tomas Maier For Bottega Veneta is by far my favorite collection and I would honestly wear almost everything in that collection, because it is so cool and wearable. This one also has a very American-inspired look to it with the baseball jackets, military-style shirts and jackets, and the use of cargo beige and army green as the main colors. The sort of chinese-colored style pants aren't something I'm really into, but even for those horrible pants, the creative director was able to make up for it by putting a great mix of pieces that are so sophisticated and manly. It's the type of clothes that when you walk into a room, everyone stares, especially the ladies. A man in Bottega Veneta can definitely command a room.
Because I cannot go on for forever, I'm going to stop here at these four spectacular collections. Overall, I think most of the designers that are showing during mens fashion week definitely has something going on and if fashion buyers are going to get most of these looks into the stores, men in 2010 might overshadow the women in spring.
What do you think? Are these looks yay or nay? ;)
your "lonely night" eh?
ReplyDeletei like the last collection as well!
and the louis vuitton one too!