Men’s RTW—Autumn/Winter 2023

Provocation Beneath The Prim

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Miu Miu went lady-like. Or so it seemed

Miu Miu has had a good run these past seasons, chalking up considerable social-media exposure with those ultra-mini-skirts, so brief that there were apparently irresistible and must be flaunted. This season, Miuccia Prada walked away from that narrow, horizontal strip of cloth passing off as a skirt and opted for far longer lengths—knee-grazing, in fact. When the first look appeared, it seemed a model of modesty and nudge of neatness. As we examined the ensemble closely (or as closely as our PC screen permitted), there was considerable visual trickery involved. The round-neck cardigan in slate grey was a distraction, not quite a fashion statement. The attention-grabber was below the waist: a sheer, micro-dotted, slim-fit skirt, worn really low. In fact, it appeared to be clinging to the wearer’s hips, exposing the pantyhose, worn high at the waist, where the cardigan was casually tucked, like one would after an unexpected quickie. It helped that the model’s hair was messed up. She trotted urgently on, with a bag carried in the crook of her arm, swinging with comparable urgency. Back to work?

The show was themed Ways of Looking. That could also mean ways of being looked at. But the typical Miu Miu girl—such as those on the front row or Emma Corrin (The Crown) on the runway—probably does not care how anyone looks at her. She is only aware, as she strides on in her kitten heels, of the ways she alone looks at things. Such as how her navel could be exposed, but not quite. Or as Miu Miu explained in their show notes, “the instinctive process of looking, ways of seeing, and how an act of observation can, in turn, transform the object of its focus.” By looking long enough, and the transparent is not? By staring and the discomfiture is gone? Most of the looks Ms Prada sent out could be described as pants-less (even when leggings were worn). In fact, the last three models (Ms Corrin among them) appeared in just plain turtlenecks and crystal-encrusted granny panties. Will the fancy underpants be outerwear when we look hard enough too? Or, perhaps just look intently and the intention could be unintended?

The beauty of this collection was that almost ‘normcore’ clothes (yes, they’re around) could be given a spin and made sexy. That was the shrewdness of Miu Miu (and Prada too). Marketeers like to call such exercises “elevating” the basics. But much of what Miu Miu elevated was hosiery—pulled up high so that they sit above whatever bottom chosen or under more panties, acting like a sheer canvas. That said, panty-baring was very much part of the game. But, you could really turn out these looks with what already exists in your wardrobe. Just pull this down, yank that up. When pant-less was not the effect, the look was decidedly masculine, even hulking (see the jackets). In fact, some male models were used in the show, but whether the clothes were indeed part of a revisited menswear line, it is isn’t clear. Miu Miu reportedly preferred to describe the looks as gender-fluid. Was that why the guys were clothed in women’s cardigans? But négligée styles were very much a part of the line-up too, many embroidered or appliquéd. Would those diaphanous dresses be sold as gender-fluid too?

The show was staged in the Palais d’Iéna (next to the Trocadéro Gardens), constructed in the 1930s, and one of the three buildings that was kept standing after the Universal Exhibition of 1937. Although the palais is noted for its “classical style”, the Miu Miu show space was set up to effect some industrial exposition (or an outdoor concert?), complete with visible aluminum posts of the modular truss system and flat screen monitors suspended above the narrow, raised runway. The looped video shown on the screens was a curious, repetitive, Warholian performance by the Korean artist Jeong Geum-hyung, who, with hands above various garments, was basically caressing herself. All this to the show’s soundtrack of upbeat jazzy tunes. Miu Miu described the artist-provocateur’s act as “examining the relationship between her own body and clothing”. That was indeed one of the Ways of Looking.

Screen shot (top) and photos: Miu Miu

Balenciaga, The “Reset”

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How would Demna Gvasalia undo the damage at the house he revitalised eight years ago? He kept resolutely to fashion, no gimmicks, or so it seemed

That the Balenciaga show was the most anticipated of the staged PFW events was the proverbial understatement. But this time, the expectancy is not for a new designer’s debut. Demna Gvasalia is still holding court. This was, by design, going to be a show like no other in his eight years with Balenciaga. This was a post-scandal, time-to-make-good exercise—redemption. This was, in effect, the maison saying they screwed up and that they were apologetic. The first show since last December’s explosive social media backlash, it was conceived to make peace with those who didn’t wait to jump at the label’s slightest misstep. While it may still be uncool in certain quarters (such as among reality TV stars) to support Balenciaga openly (the brand is certainly missing this film award season, not that Balenciaga is up Michele Yeoh’s now-spotlighted lorong), it was not the case among some stars, the press corps, hopeful business associates, and fervid supporters. This was a well-attended Balenciaga presentation—packed, as if nothing bad had happened before this. Balenciaga, now sans provocation, could possibly be vindicated, but will the past be forgotten, soon enough?

It was the most straightforward of Balenciaga shows under Mr Gvasalia’s watch. None of the theatrics of the snow or the mud of the recent past. This was a vanilla (also the colour) runway production in an exhibition space in Carrousel du Louvre, variously cool-and-then-not PFW show venue under the compounds of the Musée du Louvre that is also a shopping centre. But this is not unusual for Mr Gvasalia who is known to prefer common—even low-brow—locations. There were no sets or snaking configuration of the seating. It could be an ultra-large corporate meeting room. Even that would not be unusual. Last year, a shoot in what appeared to be an actual office landed the brand in trouble. But this time, no incriminating props. In fact, for the collection, Mr Gvasalia stayed clear of the cheesy, the cute, the weird, and concentrated on making extraordinary clothes. It was irony-lite too. And collab-less. Sneaker-bereft. As fashion goes, it was aboveboard. Barefaced Balenciaga, but logotype-free. And the models, the usual motley group that Mr Gvasalia prefers—were seemingly without make-up too (nothing TikTok filters can’t fix later?). On them, the clothes did not appear to go beyond the bounds of what he has brought to the house. Not that Mr Gvasalia stayed away from technique and crafting. Those qualities, in fact, did the talking.

First up was the tailoring or, specifically, the silhouette that has influenced practically everyone and every maison. The jackets were still wildly upsized, the shoulders extended—key in how Mr Gvasalia has been using the shoulder line to influence the jacket’s appearance—and the wider armhole that better kept its body away from the torso. That in themselves would not have been exceptional if not for the suggestion that tailored pants were used to make garments not intended for the waist downwards. The jackets, as well as coats, had waist bands at the hem, complete with belt loops and fastenings (without prong keepers, though), even button holes. As for the trousers or skirts that were teamed with the jackets and coats, they looked like upside-down versions of themselves, with extra legs on each side, flapping as the models walked (we could not see how they were fastened to the main garment). They reminded us of the two-in-one clothings of Y/Project—even their superfluous extras or additional parts were evocative of Comme des Garçons. Had Mr Gvasalia been a tad obvious that his world turned topsy-turvy? Especially after the teddy bears in dominatrix gear? Or, is this how mainstream weird has become?

Others by now considered conventional at Balenciaga included a just-as-oversized denim trucker with a low neckline for the collar or, in the case of other outers (some puffed up to look heaving), brought above the jawline, those fitted tops (interestingly, there were only two hoodies) and leggings, seemingly designed for skinny fellows (but they could easily be unisex), as well as those cover-a-lot, pleated dresses—this time, with what in our part of the world would be considered 水袖 (shuixiu or water sleeves), only theirs did not dust the floor. A couple of dresses had a half-cape on the right that concealed the sleeve and a bag that, for some reason, needed to be conspicuously hidden. There were the noticeably rounded shoulder treatment too, humped ‘pagoda’ that gave the wearer a slight shrug, even an aloofness. “I have decided to go back to my roots in fashion as well as to the roots of Balenciaga, which is making quality clothes — not making image or buzz,” Mr Gvasalia told Vogue recently. This was a show of constructional and engineering finesse or acumen, together with the guile at shifting the attention back to the designs. While the collection might have been emphatic of Balenciaga’s strength, it was hardly radical. It offered no guarantee that Netizens would be applauding and the lines will start to (re)form outside the stores. Let’s hope. Forgiveness is a good thing.

Screen shot (top): Balenciaga. Photos: gorunway.com

For Our Very Own Planet

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Thom Browne went planetary in his latest show, but it much something grounded on earth

Back in New York, after showing in Paris for the past few years, Thom Browne affirmed that he is still the master of the conceptual. No designer in New York, not even Marc Jacobs, can carry a theme through and through, and so convincingly as Mr Browne. He is a veritable one-man, American Viktor and Rolf, with the latter’s couture sensibility, and wit to boot. His autumn/winter 2023 show was testament to not only his skills, but his imagination. He presented an amalgam of not only disparate elements, but also of design and creativity. Awe-inspiring work and clothes that truly engaged the mind. Mr Browne can make clothes and he can construct, and go beyond the mundane. No elemental hyped as radical. It is a wonder—and a shameful pity—that no European brand has knocked on his studio door. Instead, those seeking names to augment their brands went looking for hip hop entertainers.

The latest season was inspired by the 1943 French novella Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) written and illustrated by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who told the tale of a boy criss-crossing the universe to seek wisdom of adults, but found them to be of the unpredictable kind. The epic set, not seen since Marc Jacobs decided to leave his beloved Park Avenue Armory essentially blank, was a rink of sand, on which a clock is shown, and above which a crashed paper biplane (some of us here might not consider that auspicious as it looked like an aircraft that Taoists burn for the dead, even if it’s less colourful) landed to depict the air crash in the Sahara, as told in the book. On the runway, two women met, one presumably the pilot-narrator (in a balloon-sleeved aviator suit) and the other, Le Petit Prince (with the golden hair). Other characters in the story were less obviously delineated, perhaps the businessman, now in the deconstructed suits. The show was as surreal as the account of The Little Prince’s planetary travels, and just as somberly narrated by an Alexa-like voice , but there was palpable joy in the clothes.

Thom Browne has moved light years away from his early days designing for Brooks Brothers (2007—2015). His particular penchant for tailoring has been recast into skills that can transmute the fantastical into the sartorial, and nicely touched by the subversive. The 2023 pre-fall collection inspired by another literary work, Moby Dick, was not only marked by the designer’s unorthodox proportional sense, but also his interpretive ingenuity in taking motifs, physical and not, and turning them into something with narrative heft and visual humour. With Le Petit Prince, he did not go off course (even when the plane crashed!). Even in times when loungewear still sadly prevails, there was something deeply appealing about Mr Browne’s suited formality that shares no similarity with American sportswear ease. We like that he did not look at the ’70s, as his compatriots Tom Ford and Michael Kors do. And that he did not succumb to the lure of near-nudity, now the dominant aesthetical mood among New York designers, especially the newish—mostly vacuous—labels.

Mr Browne not only fascinated us with designs build around formal menswear (remaining comfortably grey), but also with the far-out mash-ups that increasingly characterise his work. It is always tempting to guess that he has been trying to communicate the frailty and the increasingly patched-up nature of urban life. But that might be too easy. Perhaps, more importantly, his work, and certainly the latest, made us wonder: How was it that a suit could be so mercilessly split and spliced? How was it that, in some, they showed no start nor end. How was it that a blazer could fall off the shoulder and pool around the waist, under which a massive bow could prevail and not appear foolish? How was another, turned inside out, fastened to the waist as part of a skirt, able to remain a three-dimensional garment? How would it feel wearing that much going on (if not fabric) around the body? How would a Thom Browne anything lavish us with vestiary advantage over others? Or, impart in us, a sense of dress that has nothing to do with undress? Fashion should have this much to see, and boggle at.

Screen shot: Thom Browne/YouTube. Photos: Thom Browne

On An Up

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Louis Vuitton, it seems, is not leaving the Virgil Abloh era. Yet

That the late Virgil Abloh left his mark at Louis Vuitton is possibly understating it. So indelible it was and so successful the Abloh years were that LV probably now sees no reason to give their men’s line a major aesthetical shift. Mr Abloh was the guy LV was waiting for, but he left the world too soon. And LV was sure that you feel that too. If you have not, now is not too late. The autumn/winter 2023 show looked like those from the brand’s recent past, or eight of the runway presentations under Mr Abloh’s watch, neighbourhood and not. It preceded with an abstract film (those of us fixed on our screens saw that). The runway was not a linear track. Models walked past mise-en-scènes, amalgamated to be ghetto-fabulous and set up to suggest children’s (or young persons’) rooms. LV said that the collection is “imbued with the spirit of the inner child”, which is consistent with what Mr Abloh famously said, “I’m always trying to prove to my 17-year-old self that I can do creative things I thought weren’t possible.” Was his ghost present?

The show opened with the Spanish singer Rosalia (top)—togged in what could be the brand’s men’s pieces (and curiously carrying a search light when she came out), with hair that looked unwashed (or just washed?)—singing from atop a yellow automobile, it’s doors fitted with boom-box speakers. A black model was the first to emerge, as it had been with Mr Abloh’s show. Other models followed. They stopped in the rooms that were propped with LV trunks and strewn with stuffed toys (not, unlike in the past, attached to the clothes), fiddled with the miscellany, one was rummaging through clothes, another was scribbling on a wall, a pair played darts. It was stagey, contrived, but what that all really meant was not clear. It is reminiscent of Mr Abloh’s performative masculinity; it is inclusive, of course, and the Black-Americana is unmistakable. At times, we had to remind ourselves that we were watching the presentation of a French brand, shown in Paris.

The Abloh-ness is not tempered even with a new name presently linked to the collection: Colm Dillane, an LVMH prize finalist (2021) and the fellow behind the US streetwear label KidSuper (which was also showing in Paris). According to LV’s PR-speak, Mr Dillane was “embedded” in the menswear studio recently as—what everyone else called—a “guest designer”. Whether that was a temporary arrangement or preface to a permanent one, clear it was not (LV has yet to name a successor to Mr Abloh). The half Irish/half Spanish American knew he had large boots to fill and went about doing it without changing the metaphoric footwear—he kept the Abloh razzle-dazzle, showing largely roomy clothes with exaggerated silhouettes, immaculately tailored, faced with the mantle of streetwear, but without the cloak of design laziness. Mr Abloh had created a massive fan base. There was no reason for Mr Dillane to not cater to that. These were clothes—largely for play or to go on stage in—that would sit comfortably in a wardrobe already brimming with Mr Abloh’s LV RTW.

What struck us about the collection was the total lack of skirts. Did Virgil Abloh’s many versions not sell? And would LV be omitting the skirt from their offerings for men, totally? Mr Dillane did not push a gender-bending agenda; he took a more conventional route, putting out tailored-but-with-a-twist (some literally) looks or jackets made more interesting by adding zips to front seams and rear vents. The more unconventional details are the criss-crossed straps on a jacket that could be used to secure envelopes, notes and such. Talking about notes, one suit was festooned with pieces of oblong fabrics that looked like a random composition of written notes, such as those of Post-Its (but much larger) on a cork board. There were also graphics that were rather akin to those of KidSuper: patchwork leather that appeared like camouflage but showed a face, much like composite photography; large repeated patterns of blurred apples accompanied by text across the torso: “Fantastic Imagination”; and collage-y illustrations that would make Mr Abloh proud. But none more so than yet another reimagining of the Keepall, a bag that has been rejuvenated more times than any other in the LV collection. Even in death, Virgil Abloh was still gaily smiling on Louis Vuitton.

Screen grab and photos: Louis Vuitton

Tomb Paraders

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Dior’s fall—pre-fall?—2023 presentation was a theatrical affair at the Great Pyramids of Giza

Dior staged their latest men’s show at an Egyptian necropolis—on the Giza Plateau, home of the three 4th-dynasty pyramids. The four-sided structure appeared in the background, their outlines illuminated by lights. Dior proudly declared that this was their first presentation in Egypt. But the Italian label Stefano Ricci beat them to it when they staged their autumn/winter 2022 collection at Luxor’s better-lit Temple of Hatshepsut, this past October, making that Egypt’s first fashion show on their arid land. Neither was Dior’s the first presentation in a desert. Back in July, Saint Laurent staged its Spring/Summer 2023 event on the Agafay desert, outside of Marrakech, with just a single man-made structure, a massive monolithic ring, for the set. And in December 2020, a womenswear spring/summer 2021 runway on a dune, somewhere in the Sahara. If not for the pyramids in the background, Dior’s show could have been on any sandy acreage.

“My interest in ancient Egypt is about the stars and the sky,” Kim Jones said about the choice of Egypt as show venue. “It’s that fascination with the ancient world and the parallels with what we look at today; what we inherited from them and what we are still learning from the past.” There is no mention of sand or sand dunes, or this famous part, west of the capital Cairo. “In both the collection and the show there is an idea of ‘guided by the stars’ and what that can entail in many ways.” The pyramids were incidental; just theatrical scenery. And as there were no mention of the land, Lawrence of Arabia (although the film referred to Syria) did not appear, except those floaty capes or headwear that are not the keffiyeh. Mr Jones likely wanted to avoid the obvious. The universe, including Dior’s, is expanding.

In fact, there is, as far as we could discern, nothing that could be linked to Egypt, not that the collection—titled Celestial— needed to be. The soundtrack of a relentless techno thump already indicated the negation of North Africa or Bedouin exotica. This is modern fashion for urbanites much further away, with concrete rather than sand underfoot. There was a street vibe, a paring down of the formality that Mr Jones had initially reintroduce to his Dior Men. These were separates, almost travelcore, for the more adventurous fashion consumers, those keen on pairing the sportif with the elegant and a touch of the camp; these were not for the likes of Zahi Hawass of his younger self. Mr Jones put aside for now literary references (not even T.E. Lawrence?) for the exploration of what’s up there. Does it not sound like now-out-of-the-picture Alessandro Michele’s Gucci Cosmogenie?

There were, of course, the prints of the universe, in colours most of us came to be aware of through the cinema. They were on pullovers, leggings, windbreakers, and other outers that happily flap in the cooperative wind. Unexpected this season were the sheer gauzy pieces that, in some, included a few very bee-keeper-looking face/head protectors. Talking about those, there were also helmets with glass face shields. No driver/rider/vehicular needs were evident. In preparation for a stand storm? And what about those openwork (featuring the Dior motif Cannage) breastplates? For the modern charioteer? This season, Mr Jones finally explored skirts for men—sort of. There were many pleated halves, worn like you would an apron, but to the side. If they were full skirts (and, especially, paired with those sporty tops), might they have reminded us of what were shown at Louis Vuitton before? Could Kim Jones be positioning himself as the next Virgil Abloh?

Screen shot (top) and photos: Dior