New York – The penultimate day of New York Fashion Week: Men’s was marked on
Wednesday, February 3, and designers proved that there were two things that
are dominating this whole week: the classic gentleman and military style
clothing.
The day began with Perry Ellis, who reminded us that their days of being
considered and old man’s brand are long gone. Of course, the brand kept it
classic with suiting pieces, chunky turtlenecks, and signature
cardigans, but the looks were all very contemporary. 2014 marked the
brand’s first return to the runway, and since then, designer Michael
Maccari has proven that his contemporary take for the label has caused
buyers to covet Perry Ellis for their stores again. Since 2013, they’ve
begun retail expansion, and it’s no doubt that their more fashion forward
designs have helped.
Up next were the gentleman of Cadet, Raul Arevalo and Bradley Schmidt.
While Perry Ellis gave us the classic gentleman with a contemporary take,
this duo gave us military inspired garments that were very utilitarian such
as a workwear influenced trousers, old school military inspired jackets,
and jumpsuits that appeared to take their inspiration from welders, but
were still very high fashion. Last year, Cadet was named a finalist of the
CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, so they have a reputation to live up to now, and
they did that reputation justice with their utilitarian chic designs.
Nick Graham showed us that the classic gentleman has found his tastes for
color and flair with his offerings for fall/winter 2016. The designer who
described his collection in three words as “adventurous, manly, and
outdoorsy” really played up the outdoors theme for this collection. His all
start cast of models included major names such as Sebastian Sauve, Chad
White, Eric Rutherford, and Clark Bockelman just to name a few. Each of the
models wore ostentatious head pieces such as hats with antlers or acorns to
play up the outdoors theme, and were labeled with the names of the national
parks that inspired the looks such as Yellowstone and Yosemite.
The collection itself was a vivid array of patterns and colors like blue,
burgundy, red and green. Plaid was also big for the designer, and he’s one
of the few designers that can do plaid without having his garments look
like advertisements for lumberjacks. His ability to play with colors in
men’s suiting offers a light of hope in the world of the sartorial
gentleman who want sophisticated clothing, but aren’t fans of traditional
black tie.
The eternal prince of the utilitarian look for the week was Greg Lauren as
usual. While the designer is still going a little too far with the
deconstructed elements (the holes in the shirts and the slouchy look are a
bit too much,) he still does an excellent job with shoes, waistcoats, and
layered detailing. However, as the designer has slowly begun to find his
talents outside of the deconstructed utilitarian tastes and has begun
incorporating more classic elements into his design, his collections have
continuously improved.
With two motifs continuously dominating the men’s wear collections this
season in New York, we’ll see what day four has in store for us.
photos:via Fashion GPS