ShortList’s style director Adrian Clark saw City-boy tailoring take a back seat at last week’s London Collections: Men...
While our sporting abilities may be questionable, us Brits excel in dressing the part. Well, that’s if last week’s London Collections: Men – the city’s showcase for masculine style, kicking off the month-long festival of European fashion weeks – is anything to go by.
Previewing what we’ll be wearing in spring/summer 2015, the best British labels took field, track and festival casualwear as overriding trends, marking a departure from tailoring. Despite a heritage for sharp suiting (it is the home of Savile Row, after all), oversized shorts, boot-cut jeans, tank tops, shell suits in technical fabrics, sneakers and trackie bottoms took centre stage.
Designer James Long fused boxing elements with patchwork denim that had a tropical Balearic flavour (above) in one of the strongest collections of more than 100 brands showing at the three-day event. “For me it’s more than just sportswear, it’s fashion. It’s what I wear,” says Long.
Other highlights were Topman Design’s Britpop-meets-Woodstock collection, with washed-denim flares, psychedelic prints and old-school trainers (above), plus Nasir Mazhar’s dissipated visual language of the UK garage scene, with white sportswear-based pieces; wide-legged shorts, sweatpants, billowing shirts, braces, gym bags and back packs (below).
Rising star Kit Neale was also a favourite, with a nostalgic look at the quintessential British holiday, with inspiration from prints taken from the airport to coastlines of the Med (below). Even the less likely candidates Burberry Prorsum and McQueen went down the sporty route, respectively showing everything with hi-tops and multi-coloured sneakers, while some labels known for tailoring – such as Savile Row’s E Tautz – also had oversized sporty separates. Best tell your suits you won’t need them this time next year...
