Come on, who really wants a pointy-toe shoe? Would you want your feet to look like a Dorito? Would your toes even fit in there?
I’m not convinced. Peter Copping, the artistic director of Lanvin, sure is, though. During Lanvin’s runway show in Paris last week, Mr. Copping sent out male models in pointy shoe after pointy shoe, like a cavalcade of guys auditioning to play the Wicked Witch of the West.
At Lanvin, the spike-toe shoes put a fine point on a men’s collection that again and again made me wonder, “Who is this for?” A leather T-shirt that dangled over the elbow; a funnel-neck parka that belted at the waist; jeans the color of unripe kiwis — ideas that confounded more than compelled.
“Did anyone stop and wonder who would buy these clothes?” was the question I kept asking as I clicked through images from the shows in Milan and Paris. Though they were women’s fashion weeks, a number of brands sprinkled in men’s designs as well.
Some designers will say that the men’s and women’s lines share enough DNA to warrant being shown on the same runways. I suspect, however, that many brands combine these collections as a cost-saving measure. Unfortunately, that means that the men’s clothes often feel like an afterthought.
This sentiment was especially true for labels like Valentino, which were often presenting women’s clothes on their waifish male models. I’m not sure that many retailers will be quick to apportion their men’s budgets to sleeveless Big Bird yellow halter tops, see-through shirts and ruched teal blouses. Gender may be a porous concept in high fashion, but commercial realities remain.
Alessandro Michele, the Valentino creative director who was previously at Gucci, has long been performing these feminine mystique magic tricks for male shoppers. Just as you know the rabbit is going to come out of the hat eventually, so too can you bet that the see-through blouses will arrive on Mr. Michele’s male models at some point. These moves no longer have the power to startle.
Haider Ackermann, who, in his second season has settled in as creative director at Tom Ford, demonstrated that he knew more than enough about making suits feel, if not subversive, then at least deviant.
Cut off the body, with stately shoulders and spiking lapels, his flamingo pink and aqua green suits were kicky and louché. When paired with scooped-neck shirts and button-ups unfastened down the chest, they were downright sexy, a word that is hard to use without feeling cringe, but one that applies here.
Mr. Ackermann offered not the base shock of skin but clothes that toyed seductively with our attention, hiding the wearer here but drawing the eye there. Take the couplet of looks in the show’s center: two men, with sweaters up top and practically translucent swim trunks below, their underwear peeking out at the perimeter. Here, sexuality was being put forth and restrained all at once.
Sex hung thick in the air at the Versace show in Milan, where guests passed an unmade bed with the designer Dario Vitale’s actual sheets. (Mr. Vitale made his debut as creative director, the first non-Versace to lead the brand’s design studio.)
Models’ shirts were cleaved up the side for a half-torso display, and a number of men wore trousers that bunched at the crotch. Cheeky and not at all coy, the Versace way.
It was the colors that made this a show worth remembering. In a moment of maximum beige and greige, Mr. Vitale splashed around in cartoon land, with his lavender denim and shirts in yolky yellow and mint green. All very disco-meets-Art-Deco. A rotation of striped jeans were like wearable circus tents. The true standout was an outfit of a drop-shouldered bomber, pleated trousers and almond-shaped loafers. It was a relaxed silhouette we’ve seen many times, but in Mr. Vitale’s hands, the bomber was teal, the pants purple and the shirt underneath cornflower blue. In those Dick Tracy colors, the outfit was revolutionary.
The other Milanese debut to leave a mark was Jil Sander, where Simone Bellotti (late of Bally) seemed to wield a scalpel, not a sewing kit. His gray four-button suits, oil-well leather blazers and graphite topcoats brandished lapel lines as exacting as military haircuts and shoulder slopes that, to exaggerate only slightly, must have been calculated by a Harvard-educated mathematician. His is not a cold minimalism; it’s a cunning one.
I kept coming back to and zooming in on one leather overcoat, its navy blue shade as luminous as freshly mixed paint. One look, an all-too-white blazer, razory gray trousers and black shoes, came off as kitschy, like a maître d’ outfit from Space Station V. Best of all, well aside from the two-eyelet lace-ups that were like a pair of Clarks Wallabees reimagined by Constantin Brâncuși, were the straight-cut cobalt blue jeans. Jeans at their most idealized are always worth investing in.
Back in Paris, Michael Rider was in his sophomore season as creative director at Celine. I’m still not convinced Mr. Rider is as sure-footed in designing for men as he is for women, but there was more for male shoppers to covet this time. His sail-size silk rugby shirts, in particular, will sell. I was also won over by the oddball proportions of a look that paired khakis, pleated across like a curtain, with a knit tie and a dense-shouldered navy sport coat. The model looked like a reform schooler lost in Rocky Horror world, reading like a wry commentary on the perpetual “prep comeback” that we always seem to be idling in.
You know who absolutely asks if men really want this? Miuccia Prada. Her Miu Miu label is firmly planted in its period of updated workwear — of the blue collar and white collar varieties. For men at least, Miu Miu remains the torchbearer for luxury normcore.
It works. During fashion weeks, the streets of Milan and Paris are littered with industry types in Miu Miu fleece pullovers and corporate blue button-ups. It has also made the label a bright star in Prada’s corporate portfolio.
This season, Mrs. Prada continued to mine the egalitarian, rolling out zip-neck polo shirts cut as wide as football jerseys, gray V-neck sweaters and belts with key rings attached, like what a janitor might wear to a wedding. (The aprons that were layered over many looks, an assumed commentary on class tensions that swirl on the perimeter of the fashion world, may have been well-intended but were just distracting.)
Still, in this inflationary moment of luxury fashion, it’s one thing for consumers to desire a design, it’s another for them to be able to attain it. Prosaic though some of these Miu Miu pieces may appear, the prices will be gut-punching. That aforementioned fleece? It’s $2,450. Perhaps the question the fashion industry should be asking is not will men want this, but can they afford it even if they do?
Jacob Gallagher is a Times reporter covering fashion and style.
The post How Were the Men’s Clothes From the Women’s Shows? appeared first on New York Times.
