PMFW sees tough guys on the catwalk

The boot boys are back. And they have never
looked so elegant.
Dior, the French fashion house known for the dreamy beauty of its clothes,
showed a new much tougher side in its Paris menswear show Saturday.

It’s wasn’t quite skinhead chic but it wasn’t far from it with every trope
in the punk wardrobe from string vests to dangling trouser braces
referenced,
invariably set off by big Dr Marten-style boots.
These Dior boys meant business and you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong
side of them.

Dior and Givenchy go dark

Dark, moody and menacing, there was even something slightly S&M in the way
that Dior’s Belgium-born designer Kris Van Assche managed to turn the braces
into chest armour-cum-jewellery.
There were still more echoes of punk in the check shirts and evocations of
the ghost of Johnny Rotten’s tartan in the clever red stitching against the
collection’s predominantly black core.

A photo posted by @kris_van_assche on Jun 25, 2016 at 8:57am
PDT

The show’s two stand-out pieces were pure punk fantasy, a blouson and a
sleeveless jacket and trousers completely covered in boot eyelets, with
laces
hanging from each one.

Van Assche, however, played down the punkiness, preferring to cite “New
Wave romanticism” as its inspiration, as well as his own “very good memories
of New Wave music” from such cult goth bands as The Cure and The Sisters of
Mercy.

A photo posted by GIVENCHY (@givenchyofficial) on Jun 25, 2016 at 6:34am
PDT

Another venerable Paris house, Givenchy, also took on a more hard-edged
swagger in its show. Leather donkey jacket shoulder patches, pockets picked
out in different colours and greenback money patterned bomber jackets gave
it
a very no-nonsense streetwise look.

Rave culture
at Kenzo

The pop culture nostalgia continued at Kenzo, where American designers
Carol Lim and Humberto Leon took the Japanese brand dancing back to late
1980s
rave culture, bathing in the big beat nostalgia of House music, with a
collection made for staying up all night partying.

“Nightlife is the soul of any city. Growing up in LA we had West Coast club
life, but New York nightlife was what we craved,” they said in their notes
to
the collection.
Short-sleeved shirts and super short shorts, lots of playful acid blues,
yellows and lime greens and two-tone black and white combinations all
summoned
up the “Second Summer of Love” of 1988.

A photo posted by KENZO (@kenzo) on Jun 26, 2016 at 4:12am
PDT

​
Boxer shorts too made a comeback, pulled up high above the waist so they
almost look like cumberbunds above trousers, or simply worn as shorts with
socks and sandals or colourful two-tone shoes.
Trousers were invariably loose and worn way above the ankles, and loose
cardigans were everywhere, some covered with canary yellow feathers.

Acid House motifs from the chemical sweetshop that gave the era’s clubbers
their staying power ran through the collection, spilling into Kenzo’s Women
Resort line, which was shown alongside the men’s clothes.
Dresses edged with curtain hole rings set into the fabric caught the eye, a
detail that was picked up in the more street T-shirts/shifts.
As did a series of short dresses and mini skirts and tops with lines of
horizontal folds held together with a bow.
(AFP)