While JordanLuca’s SS25 outing pointed to the craving for rule-breaking staples, Neil Barrett was quite the opposite.
CHALK it up to a personal lull or something more existential: Neil Barrett has been drifting through the past few seasons on a raft that seems adrift. The clothes continue honing the essentialist aura they’ve long garnered through the years, but the lineup could have gained a little more shape if the volumes had something new (or quirky) to say.
Elevating the everyday classics through fragments of formal tailoring, fabric and a fuss-free ideology was the designer’s leitmotif, which incorporated suiting that featured a slew of breast pockets and white handkerchiefs, symbolising a timeless emblem of elegance. For Spring, this sartorial symbol is cloned and applied across a wealth of garments: tee’s, shirts, sweats and Harrington jackets.
In general, the brand focused on sartorial detail shifts, moving from formal suiting to different contexts. “Function can become decoration and the everyday can become an occasion,” detailed the notes.
Another element of note was the exploration of common occasion-wear which brought forth day-to-night pieces: standouts included separates that had a certain slouch to the overall shape, showing how a throw-on classic could also be perfectly simple.
The brand has been in the game long enough that not many expect it to be directional.
Yet the core customers—whether a junior executive or a downtown hipster—can resourcefully cherry-pick from this collection, knowing it still has (and can) so much more to give.
Moving onto innovation, JordanLuca’s SS25 outing is on a quest to expand on its duality: as their menswear burns right into a rousing sexual desire, the womenswear sits audaciously in an unabashed vein of ultra-feminine proposals.
Dresses eschewed volume for sight-catching finesse, from the frequent usage of synthetic appliques to 3D-printed resin. “It’s about lust, evolution and timelessness,” Jordan Bowen and Luca Marchetto detailed, unfolding a lust-filled narrative that continues to broaden the lexicon of the house.
Yet it feels that the designers are at their best when they create clothes that don’t aspire to crazy storytelling, so there was nothing overtly special in the cauldron—but in a positive sense: the underground league would find plenty of garb to wear, and retailers would be pleased to know they’re a segment for merchandise of this kind.
For these unrelated touchpoints, the collection ended up readable, wearable and très characterful.
by Chidozie Obasi