NEW YORK — On the first day of this city’s celebration of spring 2017
menswear, the designers of Duckie Brown were fixated on a photograph of
an elegantly dressed young woman taken 1,300 miles away.
In their downtown studio, Daniel Silver and Steven Cox were hunched over a tiny cellphone image of Ieshia Evans, the woman in the fluttering sundress whose steely posture was unbowed as she stood between Baton Rouge police officers armed with riot gear and angry protesters decrying the death of Alton Sterling.
No simple pair of chinos on a beanpole hipster could compete.
The woman in the sundress identified as Ieshia Evans, arrested at a protest in Baton Rouge. (Jonathan Bachman/Reuters)
At the menswear industry’s opening-night party, waiters passed picture-perfect hors d’oeuvres and bartenders poured booze. Common was on the bill. Cadillac sponsored it all.
The party conversation, half-heard over the fashionable din, was about which shows might be good — and which might be a bore. Folks nodded and smiled even if they heard only one-third of what was said. It didn’t matter; just small talk after all.
But then the topic changed. Dallas. They leaned in close — heads almost touching, don’t want to miss a word — when the fashion director of Neiman Marcus began to talk about the mood back in the gleaming Texas city where the company is based:
Fashion — as an industry — feels disconnected from today’s news. Like some oblivious bystander. The industry en masse seems diffident. The power of its collective voice goes unused in matters of social justice, national turmoil, political pandemonium.
[Okay, Gypsy Sport: Your male models in lace skirts got our attention. But now what?]
Instead, Seventh Avenue is busy bemoaning its own internal upheaval. Should it show you the spring 2017 collection now? Or wait until, say, April? Should it even call these collections “spring” or, simply, “new clothes”?
Fashion burrows on. Its creativity may stir dreams. But will it awaken the mind? A single draped navy blazer from Duckie Brown can deliver a dissertation’s worth of detail about gender. The crispness of a cantaloupe-colored sailing coat from Exley is a history lesson in New England manufacturing.
But mostly, fashion has just been peacocking. Suit Supply peddles tight little suits on hyper-groomed dandies. Uri Minkoff mixes tailoring with performance fabric to offer up short shorts that strain to their limit on the muscular thighs of dancers.
Suit Supply spring 2017 (Robin Givhan)
It might do the menswear industry a bit of good to go cold turkey on hiring so many lumberjack-bearded models who are tattooed up like “The Illustrated Man.” It would serve designers well to consider how a brocade suit or a palm frond hat might look on just a regular guy. (Probably not so great.) After all, exactly what percentage of male consumers is made up of the hipster demographic?
Krammer & Stout spring 2017 (Robin Givhan)
Menswear has spent a significant amount of runway time touting the glories of gender-neutral clothing, feminized men’s clothes and masculine clothes that are welcoming to women. But even in the fashion crowd there is little evidence that this style has made the leap from the runway to the audience. Perhaps it’s yet to come. Or perhaps fashion is off the mark, just burrowing in deeper.
The week has begun uncomfortably. At Industria Superstudios, a group of not-quite-established brands presented new lines in presentations scattered across a series of lofts. In one room, Minkoff had dancers lunging and bending in his collection of navy and cobalt blue jackets, trousers and shorts. One model did so many side planks that the back of his tailored blazer was one enormous sweat stain, which is the kind of thing that distracts one’s attention from the the tidy fit.
In their downtown studio, Daniel Silver and Steven Cox were hunched over a tiny cellphone image of Ieshia Evans, the woman in the fluttering sundress whose steely posture was unbowed as she stood between Baton Rouge police officers armed with riot gear and angry protesters decrying the death of Alton Sterling.
No simple pair of chinos on a beanpole hipster could compete.
The woman in the sundress identified as Ieshia Evans, arrested at a protest in Baton Rouge. (Jonathan Bachman/Reuters)
At the menswear industry’s opening-night party, waiters passed picture-perfect hors d’oeuvres and bartenders poured booze. Common was on the bill. Cadillac sponsored it all.
The party conversation, half-heard over the fashionable din, was about which shows might be good — and which might be a bore. Folks nodded and smiled even if they heard only one-third of what was said. It didn’t matter; just small talk after all.
But then the topic changed. Dallas. They leaned in close — heads almost touching, don’t want to miss a word — when the fashion director of Neiman Marcus began to talk about the mood back in the gleaming Texas city where the company is based:
Fashion — as an industry — feels disconnected from today’s news. Like some oblivious bystander. The industry en masse seems diffident. The power of its collective voice goes unused in matters of social justice, national turmoil, political pandemonium.
[Okay, Gypsy Sport: Your male models in lace skirts got our attention. But now what?]
Instead, Seventh Avenue is busy bemoaning its own internal upheaval. Should it show you the spring 2017 collection now? Or wait until, say, April? Should it even call these collections “spring” or, simply, “new clothes”?
Fashion burrows on. Its creativity may stir dreams. But will it awaken the mind? A single draped navy blazer from Duckie Brown can deliver a dissertation’s worth of detail about gender. The crispness of a cantaloupe-colored sailing coat from Exley is a history lesson in New England manufacturing.
But mostly, fashion has just been peacocking. Suit Supply peddles tight little suits on hyper-groomed dandies. Uri Minkoff mixes tailoring with performance fabric to offer up short shorts that strain to their limit on the muscular thighs of dancers.
Suit Supply spring 2017 (Robin Givhan)
It might do the menswear industry a bit of good to go cold turkey on hiring so many lumberjack-bearded models who are tattooed up like “The Illustrated Man.” It would serve designers well to consider how a brocade suit or a palm frond hat might look on just a regular guy. (Probably not so great.) After all, exactly what percentage of male consumers is made up of the hipster demographic?
Krammer & Stout spring 2017 (Robin Givhan)
Menswear has spent a significant amount of runway time touting the glories of gender-neutral clothing, feminized men’s clothes and masculine clothes that are welcoming to women. But even in the fashion crowd there is little evidence that this style has made the leap from the runway to the audience. Perhaps it’s yet to come. Or perhaps fashion is off the mark, just burrowing in deeper.
The week has begun uncomfortably. At Industria Superstudios, a group of not-quite-established brands presented new lines in presentations scattered across a series of lofts. In one room, Minkoff had dancers lunging and bending in his collection of navy and cobalt blue jackets, trousers and shorts. One model did so many side planks that the back of his tailored blazer was one enormous sweat stain, which is the kind of thing that distracts one’s attention from the the tidy fit.
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