Men’s fashions ASBO: Absurd Style Banishing Order

by Tom Stubbs
29 January 2010

Global recession has worked like a fashion ASBO on designer menswear. Much absurd style has been banished. Instead most houses are trying their hardest to exhibit clothes you might actually want to cough up for. Fear is an excellent motivator.

Proudly patrolling Milan as the Fashion Editor at Large for The Rake magazine was a triumphant pleasure. Revered houses have clocked that The Rake is dealing with style on a level that real men (albeit styled absorbed real men) can relate to. First Fashion Editor Esther Quek was the most photographed and admired creature in town, a bonus indeed while grafting at the fashion front.

The significant matter of the week was of course the shows and clothes. I’ll skip the pointless bits unless they’re poignantly pointless or ‘entertaining’.

Day I

Zegna celebrated their centenary in the form of a vanguard of immaculately grey suited models. The steely suiting was shiny, slightly vintage, working in modern context. Also a filmic tribute to the happy grafting workforce through the last hundred years, doing vintage star jumps and squat thrusts. Workouts have come a long way since in Thirties. Perhaps Mussolini gave them a make-over.

Film was popular. Dolce&Gabbana did what they made their name doing. Romantic Sicilian peasant chic. This masculine, no frills posturing feels somehow relevant. Charcoal and chocolate pinstriped tailoring, waistcoats and thick knits used fitted white shirts and wife beater vests as a foil. Brooding machismo with caps on worked the flashbacks from The Godfather Part II and provided attitude. The simultaneous screening of Giuseppe Tornatore’s ‘Baaria’ underlined the theatrical mood. Behind me a PR wept. The moving ‘Baaria’ climax ? No. The parade of singleted torsos.

No Dolce show is complete without a swift visit to the Grand Café & Tre Marie opposite the show on Viale Piave. Elegant and, like the clothes we’d seen, from another era. It is my favourite place in Europe to have coffee and a pastry. The thought of running a trust based cake cabinet in the UK is sadly laughable.

Trussardi’s new creative director Milan Vukmirovic has breathed life into the dislocated sleeping giant. He opted for a presentation not a runway gig. His reasons made sense, and serious menswear enthusiasts should watch video footage. He does go on a bit, mind you. The collection was ‘rugged Canadian bohemian meets luxe-lumberjack-chic’. Get it? Looks like a posh version of what many Hoxtonites are already wearing, except in cashmere.

Burberry underlined the importance of strong outwear in uncertain climes with Bladerunner-esque WWII aviator sheepskins: oberserve massive collars and reversed details. While great coats were still simply great and handsome. Bailey’s brilliance grasps a blend of British tradition and style that feels new enough to want in badly. He always delivers a smashing soundtrack, on this occasion Yazoo, OMD, The Water Boys and Ultravox.

Later, post Burberry’s dinner, I plied campaign boy Matt Gilmore (Dave’s son) with Cohiba outside the Principe di Savoia. He and his fellow Burberry boy’s hair looked like they’d all been blown silly in a wind tunnel, like sixth formers escaped from a school trip. He’s a charming chap who wobbled gratifyingly from the cigar. Well, you can’t have it all can you? I explained in the manner of an old fart how the bar once possessed a quaint stuffiness too it, with piano player and white tuxedoed old man bar staff. Beckham uses the hotel as his residence while playing for AC Milan. Perhaps his patronage explains the flashing disco bar and DJ that has been inserted into the vista. The staff used to despair at the high spirits of the Brits and go to bed leaving us to revel unmanaged. I remember jemmying the bar and giving out liquor like a Robin Hood in CP Company and snaffle loafers. Those were the days. Perhaps that why I never got offered a proper job?

To sum up, romantic masculinity was the order of the day, with strong outwear statements. Who doesn’t like a bit of that?

Men’s fashions ASBO: Absurd Style Banishing Order

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