While the world of menswear may have recently been engulfed in its own round of musical chairs— brand-designer breakups weren’t just limited to marques for the fairer sex—spring/summer 2016 seems untouched by industry shakeups as it emerges as a season of relaxed vibes and breezy hedonism.
At what was to be his second last collection for the brand, Stefano Pilati’s pieces for Ermenegildo Zegna Couture were exercises in lightness and transparency, fused with a new formskimming silhouette that heralds a welcomed departure from the shrunken menswear tailoring of yore that flatter only those built like James Bay. Both at the runway presentation and within the brand’s ad campaigns, a stark, white stage served as a sterile backdrop to the clothes: Power suit antitheses that, as its designer described, evoked “a deconstructed feeling, but constructed.” Tropical-dwelling men could no longer heat for their aversion to suits, as the the collection bore a weightless, sometimes diaphanous, quality. Moulded softly wearer’s form, blazers are no longer corporate but part of the new honcho’s uniform choice, be paired with drawstring trousers sheerness for the truly adventurous.
After almost a decade of being constricted within ultra-slim silhouettes, this witnesses a tectonic shift towards voluminous trousers, and not just at Ermenegildo Zegna Couture. A trend that has been billowing for a while now, it emerged as a full-blown movement with wide-legged jeans seen at E Tautz; dropped crotch, cropped pants at Agi & Sam; and airy, tailored iterations at Giorgio Armani paired with generous front pleats for added ease of movement.
Meanwhile, the father of loose trousers Yohji Yamamoto showed cropped trousers so wide, they could be culottes, juxtaposed against James Bond-esque, lean black suits.
Perhaps in part a nod to the decade of the ’90s, when baggy trousers were rigueur for skater boys and hip hop alike, the updated take on oversized is, thankfully, made for grown men. in luxurious materials and even formalwearassociated patterns like greyscale Madras, loosened-up look could be styled as part for easy transition from bedroom to boardroom.
Looking even further back, hyper-pleated were part of the DNA of power suiting like Armani, but today, volume is not reflection of the inflated ego and materialism the ’80s. Instead, it is emblematic of the up of corporate culture, where the guy might be a 30-year-old tech upstart or jetsetter who takes telecommuting to the and doesn’t need a power suit to define WGIVENCHY BY RICCARDOTISCI onger blame the he fabrication in ometimes even to drape the rporate armours of choice, to with a touch of stricted season.
