Fashion’s Quest For Clarity

PARIS — It’s all about having a POV nowadays, but the proliferation of opinions — in the public sphere and within brands, with the rise of merchandisers, marketing directors, and other ancillary figures to the creative director — hasn’t led to clarity. On the contrary, fashion is living through a moment of messiness: too many voices, no real point of view. The men’s fashion week that closed on Sunday in Paris was proof.

A few designers delivered well-formed messages, but they were the exception. There were plenty of collections built around characters but that too often resulted in designers haphazardly sending this and that down the runway.

It takes poignancy and a lightness of touch to make a show built on characters deliver a real fashion message and not look like a mess: qualities Julian Klausner, one of the saviors of the season, undoubtedly possesses. In the span of two seasons, without much fanfare, Klausner has made his own mark on Dries Van Noten, favouring slightly off-kilter evolution to sudden rupture. Wise. Klausner’s Dries looks like Dries, but it is also another Dries: younger, edgier, getting a lot of fun out of the act of getting dressed.

This season, the designer channeled coming of age with a grungy and spirited mix of pencil thin coats, capes and capelets, gobelin parkas, kilts and an impressive gamut of knitwear. What was surprising was not only how perfectly put together it all looked, but also how desirable everything felt. This was a collection that demands to be worn.

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Kartik Research designer Kartik Kumra, only on his second Paris outing, has already established himself as one of the most exciting new voices around. His hand is light and his spirit ineffable as he mixes a keen sense of color, a taste for pure form, and the exquisiteness of Indian decoration. This all makes for fashion that’s gentle but has character and looks unlike anything we’ve seen — save for the odd whiff of Dries.

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The temptation to go BIG can be ruinous. Nowhere was this clearer than at Willy Chavarria’s grand guignol of a musical in lieu of a show. The sensational production spared nothing, including singers Mon Laferte and Mahmood. At times it was captivating, but it was hard to find new fashion ideas in the hundred-plus looks, meant for all moments and walks of life. The tailoring, the workwear, the oversized sportswear are things that Chavarria has done for a long time.

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Rick Owens is certainly true to his vision, but there’s always a new take on things. After last season’s Tatlin-esque, expressionist explosions, fresh from the success of his Temple of Love exhibition at the Musée Galliera, Owens scaled back the theatricality for a heightened sense of reality — his own reality, that is: brutal, grotesque and crumbling, populated with beautiful monsters and freaks, channeling a rugged aesthetic that is confrontational rather than soothing. Such a dialogue with an audience of adepts is Owens’ strength, but it has its limits. “Entitled Tower,” as the collection was called, offered an unremitting proposal: a narrow, vertical silhouette, vertiginous even. It was Owens doing Owens, in other words, with a newfound restraint in the shapes — strict and functional, inspired by police uniforms — and a willingness to further open up to collaborations with young creatives, extending his cult.

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The flame of experimentation is alive amongst the Japanese: the old guard as well as the new guard are stubborn in their dedication to creation. Issey Miyake’s IM Men project — led by Sen Kuwahara, Yuki Itakura, and Nobutaka Kobayashi — struck a particularly compelling balance between abstract form, extensive textile research and practicality of use. As a study on formless form, it had a liquid kind of formality, all enveloping, monastic volumes and subtle multipurposeness. Archival references were clear and proud but marshalled to explore new ground, at once ancestral and futuristic. (At Miyake, the archive fuels further experimentation rather than nostalgia). It was a joy to behold, with a clarity of intention highlighted by a blasting palette of sunrise and dawn brights mixed with graphic non-colours.

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Grotesque, at Comme des Garçons, felt poetic. In top form, Rei Kawakubo’s cryptic urge was to get out of the black hole, which probably means not getting stuck in negativity, or an invite to consider other parallel forms of living. Whatever the rationale, it translated into a hazy collection in which masculine belligerence — hockey masks, tycoon tailoring — got distorted, nullified even, by feminine softness and exuberance: dresses aplenty, couture flourishes, bows. It was a typically Comme play of contrasts, in a just as typical palette of black lit with metallics and white, but what felt new was the tone: After a few somewhat bitter years, Kawakubo went lyrical, keeping the expression dry, and delivered the message with undeniable lightness and precision.

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Yohji Yamamoto, instead, delved into badass melancholia. His posse of men of all ages, dressed up in tailored ‘n tattered rags that looked like they were pulled from the garbage can or the dirty battlefield, all military inspired and generously shaped, walked down the runway interacting with two punching balls: some kissing or caressing them, some punching it. They all looked worn out by life and yet regal, which in itself is a cheerful suggestion on how to deal with the challenge of being born or il male di vivere.

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Taro Horiuchi’s take on Kolor is progressive: it is rooted in the codes of the brand — a blunt, abstract merging of soft tailoring and functionality, with sprinkles of bright colour — but it keeps pushing forward in unforeseen directions. The marine adventure thread this season triggered a rugged trip on stormy weaves in washed wools, fluorescent duffels and shredded silver jeans that was energising for the richness of the details and the lack of preciousness.

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The Sacai formula is well established at this point, but Chitose Abe has the rare ability to reiterate her idea of hybridization in ways that are never stale. With its flowing merging of suit and tie, masculine and feminine, swarming prints, rustic knits and boxing references, Abe’s latest endeavor saw her explore ideas of construction and destruction, with graphic grace rather than a punky stance, translating into one of the designer’s best collections in recent times.

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Over at Taakk, Takuya Morikawa continued his exploration of texture and craft over forms that ebb and flow, following a primitivist thread of thought rooted in the Jomon culture of ancient Japan. It made for an intensely tactile, preciously raw outing, resolutely adding Taakk to the roster of relatively new labels worth looking at.

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At Doublet, Masayuki Ino pushed experimentation to unprecedented levels by working on out-of-this-world fabrics made out of particles present in the air, the most invisible element, while delving into classic tailoring in his own way. It made for a mind expanding contrast charged with the brand of poetic riotousness that’s Ino’s oh-so-touching quality.

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Speaking of classicism, it was as pervasive in Paris as elsewhere this season, but it got a few more nuances. In a new iteration of his twisted take on the Western classics, Junya Watanabe went for full-on dress up, complete with dimly lit jazz club setting and Miles Davies soundtrack. Think top hats, camel coats, shrunken blazers, Levi’s formalwear and low crotch pants. Signature Watanabe, in other words, with admirable focus.

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The best part of the Juun.J collection was the opening detour around black tie and after-dark formality, which soon gave way to the hybrid tailoring and the dramatic volumes which are the core of the brand. Truth be told, Juun.J was an early purveyor of the oversize and owns the aesthetic. This, however, has become stale, and he needs to progress.

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Mike Amiri’s take on formality is funky and glitzy, in a 1970s lounge lizard kind of way: Think rhinestones as decoration, shapely blazers and even cardigans in lieu of a jacket. Amiri is catering to quite a specific set and he does so with remarkable consistency. One might like his style or not, but it’s a case study in brand building.

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On the opposite end of the spectrum sits Pierre Mahéo, the fine purveyor of French-flavoured essentialism over at Officine Générale: loose, malleable classics in muted tones and upscale fabrics, positioned halfway between fashion and timelessness. It’s a fine but not so easy balance, which Maheo achieves with a quirky Parisian touch and true love for the product.

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At Post Archive Faction, Lim Dong-joon expressed his will to create new classics, stating that what we consider classic today was once sportswear. Albeit conceptually stretched, the rationale was kind of true, and translated into a minimalistic and sensual vision of wardrobe staples, from the coat to the cardigan to the running jacket, with slits and little opening creating cheeky see-through effects.

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Interesting things happen when classicisms and the aesthetic of mess meet up. In his first standalone menswear presentation — a playful affair of looks on hangers and stacks or lines of items and accessories — Celine’s Michael Rider further delved into the edgy-preppy / sculpted tailoring / abstract volumes formula that although being only a few months old has already had an influence on the system. In their overt attempt to mimic the little missteps and the on-the-go untidiness of dressing in haste for urban life, the looks were probably a little overstyled, but deliciously so, highlighting the versatility and playfulness of the pieces, with a welcome openness to personal interpretation. Rider’s signature is fascinating: soft, bookish, rooted in authentic passion for the art of getting dressed and the many possibilities it entices.

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The tailoring at LGN Louis Gabriel Nouchi is always sharp, muscular and sexually charged, meant to suggest dress as it entices undress. It’s a highly personal code but able to gather a community. What still needs fine tuning is the translation of the designer’s seasonal theme into the clothes — this time, it was “Alien” — because so far the results have been a bit literal, a bit camp.

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Having left Milan to try his luck where the fashion game gets really tough, Luca Magliano debuted in Paris with a very tight, very melancholic, very Magliano summation of his classicism subverted by small gestures, of his touching idea of provincial elegance, brought to life by humans of all ages and walks of life with stories written on their faces, bodies and gestures. Averse to comfortable situations, Magliano upped the game not out of excessive pride or a hunger for grandeur, but with the awareness that where one is not perfectly at ease, one rediscovers one’s strengths. It made for a mature and touching debut, so profoundly Italian in soul and personality as to appear challenging in the City of Light.

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In Paris, ultimately, the French touch was reaffirmed. It’s a cliché, certainly, but it is charming and reassuring. Véronique Nichanian has always been a champion of gallic clarity. “It’s not a retrospective, but a collection like many others, in which some of the silhouettes I’ve always favoured return, and so does my play with colour, and Hermès’ unique expertise in handling materials,” the designer said shortly before her final show, after thirty-eight years of impeccable service, at the luxury powerhouse. On the catwalk, the Nichanian signatures were brilliantly reiterated: sleek suits, enveloping blousons and parkas, fine leathers everywhere, treated as if they were fabric: There was even a midnight blue crocodile tuxedo, and a tracksuit in pinstriped sheepskin that looked like cashmere fleece. All of it in a very urban palette of grays, blues and blacks, mixed with subtle irreverence. And just like that, an important chapter in the house of Hermès’ long history closed.

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At Jacquemus, which closed the week, it was another Parisian classic that took centrestage: the lavishly partying 1980s, complete with 1950s references, flying saucer hats, JC Castelbajac surrealism and odd colours. Taking over the marvellous premises of Musée Picasso, Simone aimed at channeling Paloma Picasso and her peers. It was fun, but truth be told, the womenswear verged on the carnival. The menswear, however, save for the odd cone hat, had focus, and looked plausible. Apparently, men’s is the fastest growing category for the brand, and it’s the suits that are selling like hotcakes. Suits therefore were featured throughout, which in a way encapsulated the classicism of the season: a clear business plan for a time of neo-conservatism.

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