Menswear day at London fashion week may be more relaxed, but there are still plenty of style posers, says Imogen Fox. Oh, and some fine clothes too.
Wednesday is the last official day on the London fashion week schedule and it's time for fella fashion to take to the catwalk. It isn't so different from the women's days – there's clothes, models, trends and tickets – but there is also a more relaxed, last day of term feel. The goodie bags are filled with teabags (thanks E Tautz) rather than hair products, there are marginally less front row diva incidents, and crucially we're talking suits, not skirt hems. Here are some fashionably acronym-ed and abbreviated highlights.
MR.P
Aka the new power front row. Team Mr Porter.com is the menswear equivalent of the Paris Vogue lot at womenswear. They have a bona fide front row look that's so tight it must be written into their contracts. The Mr P look is James Bond meets Savile Row – it's slick and straight. Collars are strong and upturned, lines are neat and there are some serious luxe leather accessories going down. The rain meant Team Mr Porter could showcase a selection of serious brollies, but alas meant that opportunities for purring around on the fleet of Mr Porter-emblazoned motorbikes were limited.
WTF
Menswear wouldn't be menswear at LFW without the odd out-there catwalk look. Predictably the WTF moment came during the MAN show, which showcases a trio of upcoming young designers. First up was a brown shiny PVC penis beret at New Power Studio, then came a child wearing a brown fleece all-in-one with a crown of lighted incense sticks on his head. The reasons: hen nights and pre-Lent carnivals were cited as inspirations. Of course they were. Another WTF MAN moment came during Martine Rose's show, when she sent out a gold T-shirt made from hypothermia blanket fabric, which, unlikely as it sounds, worked for me.
OMG
The acronym was sewn on to a sweatshirt at the brilliant Christopher Shannon show. I'd recommend any man I know to investigate his shirting and fleecy/quilted sweatshirts with neon toggles. Probably best to swerve the fluorescent eyebrows and the frilled nylon trousers though.
TMD
London fashion week: Topman Design. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters
That's the official acronym of Topman Design – the slice of Topman that is shown on the catwalk. This season, according to the show notes, the Topman boy would not look out of place leaving a smoking Parisian jazz club during the early hours of the early 1950s. Time travel decadence aside, there were silk paisley shirts, tweed suits, lurex fisherman jumpers (big thumbs ups) and fake fur. It went down a treat. Topman deserves high fives for a) delivering a fine show and b) being the very heart of menswear day in London. Basically, without its cash and venue loaning the whole day would fall flat.
SPG
Sorry if you misread: that's Sir Philip Green, not Sarah Jessica Parker - the barrow-boy billionaire was the bona fide VIP at the Topman show (Richard Bacon went too, but he doesn't count). There are only two FROW looks on menswear day: it's either jeans or high-end tailoring. If pushed, we'd put SPG in the latter camp (he goes bespoke, surely?) In other FROW news, Ed Vaizey is clearly SamCam's menswear understudy. He put in a grinning appearance at the lovely E Tautz show. Not sure he functions quite so well in the fashion-is-a-big-industry supportive role, but he'll do.
Lauren Wood
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