What’s Hot (17.1.24)
Fashion
Men’s – Perfetto. Zegna AW24
Zegna‘s autumn-winter 2024 collection is probably my favorite of the entire Milan Fashion Week. It’s just perfetto. Collectively made in a beyond color palette of butter, burnt orange, asphalt and the inkiest of blues, Alessandro Sartori‘s latest line-up was about the greatest coats – from a sweeping raglan sleeved number to a padded cashmere coat with an almost suede-like hand, I’m drooling over each of them. “I wanted everything in natural materials: washed cashmere, treated cashmere, quilted cashmere, beaver cashmere and upcycled cashmere,” explained the designer. These cashmere knits look heavenly on the screen, so I just can’t imagine how good are they IRL. Sartori’s standout idea this season were the work jackets and outer shirts – all cut with patch pockets, wide sleeves and generous proportions. The designer offered many looks with detachable collars, or collar choices, in either rawhide or stiff felt, giving a sharp finish to the jawline. And his trousers are simply the best of the sartorial power of “Made in Italy” (did you get my Ed’s Dispatch newsletter on “Italianity”?).
Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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What’s Hot (16.1.24)
Men’s – Prim And Perverse. JW Anderson AW24
Jonathan Anderson said in his autumn-winter 2024 preview: “Eyes Wide Shut is one of my favorite films, and I actually think it’s a great Christmas film.” It was, however, two viewings last summer that led to this JW Anderson collection. “I’ve never made anything about a film before,” said Anderson. “This is also the sexiest we’ve ever gone – as far as I can go.” Fashion world has a great affection for this Stanley Kubrick fim. Lately, Puppets & Puppets had an entire collection dedicated to this spicy romance-thriller. In case of Anderson, the result was a diverse design range, spanning from prim to perverse: both in menswear and women’s pre-fall, at moments in a Prada-ist manner (fun fact: in the 2000s, the Irish designer used to work around Prada at Brown Thomas in Dublin; there he met Manuela Pavesi, Miuccia’s right-hand, where she consulted the brand’s merchandising). For the collection’s hero print, Anderson contacted Christiane, Kubrick’s widow, regarding her paintings that the director used in his films (including A Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut). These paintings were what spanned the triptych knit jersey dresses: other pieces featured a portrait of a family cat, a pot plant with a barcode still on its tub, and a car interior. Said Anderson: “I thought what was interesting is the psychology of this idea of bringing someone from the background to the foreground.” This was about as literal as Anderson got. The collection contained neither Christmas trees nor masks – although Nicole Kidman was on the soundtrack, delivering the near-to-last line of dialogue – however a palpable spirit of twisted bourgeois eroticism ran through the darkened runway as fil rouge. Red, with all its implications, headlined in an oversized velvet evening jacket for men. The jacket’s womenswear counterpoint was a red velvet jumpsuit with one disordered, asymmetrically cut leg that seemed at the intersection of sleepwear and evening wear. Anderson’s own recurring predilection for shorts was satisfied afresh via some wonderful rib knit pieces – sometimes partnered with cardigans, sometimes not – from whose edges oozed suggestive, unsettlingly domestic whorls of satin. Dressing his female and male models in tights over panties gave a less figure-skating aspect to the trophy underwear trend.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Men’s – Synthetic Environments. Prada AW24
“In this moment you can’t avoid talking about subjects that are relevant. For instance, nature.” As Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons jointly explained, the thinking behind their Prada autumn-winter 2024 menswear collection was intimately entangled with the notion of our natural environment – how we are insulated from it, and how to go back to it. Simons addeded: “Most people’s screensavers are nature but then at the end we sit in this very synthetic human made environment.” A menacing tension felt palpable once the models, dressed as corporate commuters, walked on the raised glass floor with a stream running through a meadow beneath. The patches of highland greens contrasted with the synthetic green of the wool caps worn on the runway. The collection itself consisted of ultimate classics of menswear, as Simons listed for “the businessman, the working man, the thinking man.” Most wore ties. The Prada twist was touches that subverted these safe spaces of identity, enticing the wearer to surround himself with nature. Narrow-fit raincoats, tweed chore jackets, three-button gray topcoats, and gold buttoned naval outerwear all offered a route outdoors. This was a Prada outing that offered safeness and quintessence, clothes-wise.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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