As menswear specialist, working with several prestigious labels, I have recently decided to move to the UK to live close to the most energetic city in Fashion, London. My article today will be focused on SS14 menswear collections, from a French point of view, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes pessimistic, but always try to be fair.
I have felt this Spring Summer 2014 season globally to be much better than Fall Winter 2013, in terms of style. As the economical situation is at its worse, stylists and art directors must pay a very careful attention to their designs.
Fashion currently needs to be considered as a piece of art instead of being considered as a piece of clothing. If the couple last seasons have marked a great development of “casual chic nothing to show” labels, it appeared to me that people needed to express themselves this season.
Not The Stereotypical Pitti Uomo
As usual, I attended Pitti Uomo in Florence, to say hi to my current clients and discover emerging designers. Pitti Uomo is Men’s Fashion event hosted twice a year in Italy. What surprised me is, even though this is a very fashionable trade show that every menswear label would like to go to, it is always very conservative. However this time, fashion was back! Prints everywhere, colours, dots, stripes, flowers…
It appeared that people are more willing to pay for something very special, they want and need to feel unique, to express themselves with clothes, which is always a very positive sign.
Paris Fashion Week
Paris Fashion Week, was as always rich in terms of creativity but we see a lot of pressure as the season in store has been badly because of the weather. I nevertheless found very interesting pieces that I wanted to share with you. My favourite collection is from GASPARD YURKIEVICH. Even though no shows have been done this season, the collection deserved to be on a runway.
I unfortunately did not have a lot of time to enjoy London Collections: Men, but what I saw was amazing as always. I can hardly think of a bad thing I have seen, but I noticed some I loved. Christopher Kane has been my favourite. I could have worn every single item in his collection.
Italy & Paris The 6 Key Trends
- Dots, we have seen them everywhere in each fashion show and in every fair. (Marni, Christopher Kane, Gaspard Yurkievich, Carven, Dsquared2)
- Flowers (Dries van Noten, Bill Tornade, Dsquared2, Dirk Bikkembergs, Miharayasuhiro)
- Artistic prints ( Sibling, Kenzo, Givenchy, Christopher Kane, Issey Miyake)
- Printed shorts suits – Huge this summer and more so the next.
- Gold printed Loafers – Very versatile with many menswear. Shiny, goldy or printed will be dominate
- Leather printed bags – mans bag don’t leave with out one
