After decades of marrying severe artistry and commercial savvy, where does menswear leave us?
THE VENERABLE suit is a crucial element of Italian fashion and one that the country’s designers visit again and again, both across ready-to-wear and higher-end offerings. This season, Pitti Uomo’s designers devoted entire collections to it. But this was mostly a riff on suiting as a motif.
In other words, if you’re looking to revive your timeless Retro-esque classic, you’d be packed with luck. Over the years in the business, Pitti Uomo has built itself a coterie of uptown fans who keep to their formal coats, with demi-couture details, and stick to their comfort zone. Indeed, Florence has a hotbed of talented people who are not keen to take risks, but the risk is culturally what drives fashion forward because it’s something that people haven’t seen before.
Today, one can say the French, the Scandinavians and the Asians work at that high degree of creative intention in pursuit of invention; what these markets put forward is a sheer technicality, a unique vein of taste. These days, fewer and fewer designers are focused on fashion. They are focused on something else, like creating clothes around a centred and seasonal throughline— say, minimalism’s craving for form and function—while repeating all manner of dress shapes and suit silhouettes that people have seen before.
Scandinavian Manifesto
Scandinavian Manifesto
Given the heavy direction evident in autumn collections, though, it looks like these names have the potential to leap downtown—embracing the clientele who are bar-hopping at the mall, as well as those opting for lunch at Rinascente. This season, the designer’s signature styles came in a slew of black, white and earthy neutrals, sumptuously embellished with beading or lace edging.
At the same time, sportier propositions keep being deconstructed in a slouchier manner, even as their fabrics—corduroy, denim, wool—ran to the flamboyantly expansive and formal. Toppers came with rounded drop-shoulder constructions in muted colours that had the effect of a pared-back staple, while pants were either tailored but nowhere near strict or veering into a quasi-delicate realm. Soft tailoring is where menswear is leaning towards.
Comfy, though, isn’t a word that gets used much in fashion, but it perhaps should. It’s the reason why this season’s insiders responded well to breezier pieces that mimic sweatwear or crossover waistline pants. Practicality isn’t a quality that gets cherished much across premium and luxury brands either, but the new take on menswear embraces it, whipping up clothing in technical fabrics that are reversible and functional.
These are silhouettes of clothes that decidedly felt like you had seen them time after time; that certain slouchy Italian style that seems stuck around the early period of the 1980s and the pre-war output. It’s a pity, because designers had once experimented with silhouette in such a deft way, for instance making a collection on a famed personality and far beyond, and pattern-cutting techniques were a huge feat.
Amid these perplexing times, though, the need for reinvention might come as an afterthought for those quarrelling to stay afloat, and hopefully, this rigour will be eschewed and be taken to new territories next season, as the codes of menswear in Italian fashion will continue to evolve and progress in fresher directions, mindful of the ever-changing variety that it has on deck.
Scandinavian Manifesto
Scandinavian Manifesto
Clever ideas are all, certainly the kind of fresh and elegantly shaped pieces that Italians adore. But on the whole, it needs some provocation, refining ideas with ingredients that would make style recipes sing. A recipe that greatly blossomed within the fixtures of the Scandinavian Manifesto, growing from strength to strength.
“For this season, we’ve tried to elevate the Scandinavian Manifesto a bit more,” explained Shane Baron Stennicke-Roensholdt, Interim Director at the Copenhagen International Fashion Fair (CIFF). “We, of course, had a few brands last season that have been recurring, as we want to get consistency, but at a certain point we also need to revamp and remix it both for the Scandinavian Manifesto and also for the other things that we do, such as the trade show in Copenhagen, reason for which we brought on board names like NN07.”
The section features a healthy mix of brands across the Scandi region, including the likes of Mark Kenly Domino Tan (MKDT). “I think in general, the Scandinavian market is really strong in what it does, especially on the fashion side. So we see more and more brands coming up and doing something well,” states Stennicke-Roensholdt, who thinks “trade shows and the trade fairs, in general, are important.
But they also need to deliver value at the end of the day. Otherwise, where is your raison d’etre?” The organisation will also lead activations outside the world, like New York for instance. “We have Copenhagen and then we have New York in February,” he adds.
“So we’re really trying to create this platform where we’re a partner throughout the year and not just at specific dates, to actually take the brands where we know it makes sense for them to be across different markets because collectively, we can do more than maybe the individual brand can do. So I think that’s the essence of what we’re trying to do in general, that we want to go from being a platform where you attend once or twice a year to a place where you can actually have us as partners throughout.”
Gene Gallagher for GUESS JEANS
Maintaining an optimistic line of thought on the menswear front and far beyond is GUESS JEANS’ Nicolai Marciano. “The collection keeps growing and evolving, and I wouldn’t say that every collection is super specific in terms of inspiration: it’s all about California casual,” opines Marciano.
“Everything in here is our DNA, our roots. I think where we keep expanding everything is within treatment, within fabric, textures, colours, but we like to kind of stay true to our guns, like what we’re really about, where we’re from. And that just keeps expanding.
The Guess AirWash is something that’s very new for us and for our world, and that’s something that we keep developing into new processes, really stretching the limits of what we’re able to achieve with it, which has been promising. It’s come a long way since we started, so we just keep pushing in that direction.”
Kai Isaiah Jamal for GUESS JEANS
Beabadoobee for GUESS JEANS
The brand is in its casual sphere, “like a laid-back, casual, cool lifestyle vibe,” says Marciano. It’s been growing well internationally and leads the charge in lots of new markets. “Retailers!” exclaims Marciano, who frankly admits that “fashion is in a tough space in general,” and he doesn’t think that’s a secret to anyone. The future looks promising, though.
“We just bought Rag & Bone, so we’ve been showing some organic growth within the company and some non-organic growth with acquisitions: for us, we are either planning or growing.” The brand has just signed a deal with Tata Cliq in India. “We have really big hopes and aspirations for India,” says Marciano. “That’s a big market for us.” Next stop, Africa. “We’re looking at a few different countries like Nigeria. So our vision is onwards and upwards.”
Rag & Bone AW25
A vision that marries that of Rag & Bone’s Robert Geller. “We started off as a denim company back in the day, and we’ve been really building layers on top of the denim for years now,” says Geller. “But this season particularly we’re trying to expand, elevate the collection so we have a lot more tailoring, and more really beautiful wool coats and stuff.” Tech tailoring is also present in the mix there, but denim is a traceable element throughout the new lineup.
“I think within our denim ready-to-wear—or better put, seasonal denim—we have our top look, which is our denim suit. It’s like our take on the suit with the double pleated pants, which are very relaxed and sort of modern. And then you have within our more elevated world, this double layered wool with the beautiful sort of denim layered underneath, which brings it back to where we came from.
Rag & Bone AW25
Rag & Bone AW25
So this is just showing our technique for the infused denim: It’s basically starting off with a sewn garment and then we wash it down, which is kind of a regular process of denim. Then what we do are two or three rounds of dyeing to get really beautiful colours that then layer on top. So then when you see how it ends up, you have all the great highs and lows of all the washes.”
Manifattura Ceccarelli AW25
Manifattura Ceccarelli AW25
On silhouettes, Manifattura Ceccarelli centres the theme of form with a lineup that speaks to the mid-level market. “We like to think that choosing what to wear every day is not only a choice that speaks about us but also speaks about the values we choose to represent,” said Leandro Manuel Emede and Nicolo Cerioni, who took on the art direction of the brand this season.
Manifattura Ceccarelli AW25
Manifattura Ceccarelli AW25
“Manifattura Ceccarelli for us represents this typically Italian, or rather Emilian, strength of values: resilience, beauty, innovation, love for what you do and courage: This is the idea behind the campaign that tells the story of 10 characters who wear Manifattura Ceccarelli day by day, different personalities united by their being unique. The meeting with Leandro and Nicolo was full of complicity and harmony; they designed the space where the images mingle with the garments on display and where the visitor can touch and wear what he sees in the photos.”
AVANT TOI AW25
AVANT TOI AW25
Speaking of colours and palettes, AVANT TOI presents a welcome respite amid this season’s blast of neutrality: born as a response to the re-ignition of a new set of staples, on the anniversary of its 30th anniversary it creates a narrative that unites past and future, tactile minimalism and delicacy define the collection with cosy felts, brushed surfaces, marbled workmanship and gauzy jacquards that offer a feeling of protection and comfort.
AVANT TOI AW25
Moreover, the oversized and cocooning shapes, designed for maximum comfort, embody a relaxed and refined aesthetic. Knitwear, the beating heart of the collection, is enriched with accessories such as silk scarves, scarves, gloves and hats, complemented by jackets and coats. The concept of soft rigour is also embraced and translated by Brunello Cucinelli’s winter offering, which explores ancient instincts through the codes of modern dressing. Clothes reclaim their identity by enriching their sensitivity through a fusion of fuss-free aestheticism and lighter traditionalism.
Plenty of designers talk about invention, but not all of them can pin down the concept of direction. If this generation of thinkers won’t broaden their practice, that same old generation might keep knocking season after season with little chance of scaling, maintaining the same old traditionalist edge Florence is known for.
by Chidozie Obasi