SOME WORDS ABOUT MILAN, PART I

Bottega Veneta: Tomas Maier overindulges in his ideas—colorblocking, printing, hybrid garments, and bonded treatments—to various degrees of success, but the quieter designs are actually the most provocative and interesting. Reinterpreting “luxury” has always been his strong suit, so it stands to reason that the least heavy-handed iterations are also the most covetable and wearable.

Burberry Prorsum: By no means does anybody expect a Burberry Prorsum show to be innovative, but it’s still a little disappointing when Christopher Bailey latches on to a slightly older idea (i.e. looser fits, pseudo-couture inflected silhouettes), even when he does execute everything so wonderfully. The mix of high and low, sport and suit are surefire editorial successes, but all the man of the street wants to know is when can he get his hands on some of those jackets.

Calvin Klein Collection: For the last few seasons, Italo Zuchinelli has been quietly trying to remind us that Calvin Klein built his empire not on sharp suits and glamorous gowns, but on smart, sleek, perfectly executed sportswear. Leather has been a key component of the Milan shows, but where most designers dress it up, Zuchinelli takes it in a distinctly downtown vibe with croc-embossing executed as in-your-face panel work. It’s a refreshing, if slightly unwieldy, refresher course on what real, luxury sportswear is supposed to look and feel like. Of course, Zuchinell is no fool when it comes to the bottom line, so get at the mesh-covered puffers, luxe zip-up jackets, and perfectly simple knitwear before they disappear off the racks.

Jil Sander: Subtlety is one of Raf Simons’ strong suits, though that’s not the first word that comes to mind given the leather-clad army that walked down the Jil Sander runway. And yet, for all the toughness of the tailored hides, there’s something more going on. The whimsical knits and slightly soft collars (don’t blink of you’ll miss them), showed off another dimension that can’t be as easily parsed with references to fascism or fetish. Is it a boy pretending to be a man or a man longing for his youth? But like almost all of Simons’ puzzles, it’s probably one that can best settled by actually living in his clothes.

John Varvatos: It’s always a little bit of a chore to slog through a John Varvatos show, since you already know what’s coming: leather and shearling and cashmere, suits and jackets and chunky sweaters, grays and blacks and plaids. Varvatos himself admitted that it was a show of pieces, not of looks, so it was more of a walking catalog than a true runway show. For the devoted, there’s plenty to love, but if you’re expecting any surprised, you’d best try another show.

Les Hommes: Chunky or clunky? It’s a little hard to tell when designers so devoted to black turn to Peru, of all places, for textures and colors. There’s always something a little ridiculous about fashion propositions like “mountain man goes luxe”, but if you’re able to get past the almost theatrical styling, there are pieces here worth owning. No surprise that a collection inspired by a country as famed for knitting as Peru would be full of great sweaters, but with their out-sized proportions and dropped shoulders, you’d need the courage of a mountain climber to pull them off.

Marni: There’s an ocean of difference between an artist and an artisan, but Consuelo Castiglioni’s strength has always lied in her ability to blend the two without the least bit of pretension or artifice. Blacks and navies offered up a smart blank canvas that let rich ochres, deep reds, and flashes of fur really shine. Quilting tapped into the “heritage” influence that pervades so much of menswear without feeling like the Marni man is sipping too hard of the Kool-aid; smart clothes for smart men.

Moncler Gamme Bleu: Salon meets speedway in another typically atypical show from Thom Browne in his latest collaboration with Moncler. After hitting the slopes and crossing sabers, Browne has taken the label to Monaco for the Grand Prix and he has put the pedal to the floor with an unrelenting defilé (replete with numbered cards) that riffs endlessly on both Moncler’s heritage and the visual iconography of racing. Naturally, everything is thoroughly quilted and filled, but for a man as obsessed with details as Browne, this entire show is about shape and proportion. Rarely have Browne’s shoulders been stronger or his layers more deviously difficult to pick apart, but despite his reputation as a showman, he knows what we’re really here to see: clothes. Just don’t let all the testosterone and motor oil fool you. There are jackets and sweaters here for every man: throw one of the vests over your favorite suit or add a quilted pant to any basic tailored outfit and you’ll still look anything but pedestrian.

Neil Barrett: Neil Barrett has a penchant for taking the most daring tropes in contemporary menswear and turning them into really wearable clothes. Sometimes, the magic of the idea—the spark—gets snuffed out in the process, but sometimes he manages to take truly forward ideas and make them seem as normal as t-shirt and jeans. Checks dissolved into chevrons, technical jackets draped over sharp suits; it’s an idea that doesn’t require a stretch of the imagination while simultaneously looking genuinely new. Some of his overtures towards more forward dressing (the A-line coats and ultra-skinny cropped trousers) simply didn’t have the same easy touch, but it’s nice to see Barrett break new ground even as he remains steadfastly within his milieu.

Prada: Despite her constant plumbing of decades past for inspiration, you could never really accuse Miuccia Prada of nostalgia. And yet, what else would you call a collection dominated by the spirit, silhouettes, and proportions of Edwardian dressing? There were reminders of seasons past (cummerbund, effortless layers, prints that were so garish they were somehow chic), yet the collection avoided sentimentalizing history. Equal parts regal and regimental, this was a collection about control, from the belted waists and tailored lines to the subdued palette shot through with occasional hints of red and aubergine. It was a full-throated cry for civility and sophistication and an all-star cast of men’s men (Tim Roth, Adrien Brody, Gary Oldman, and Willem Defoe) answered the call. And yet, it was the clothes, not the superstars, that were the most believable.

Valentino: It took a few collections for Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli to leads their womenswear out from His towering shadow, so after the just-too-precious tailoring that defined their last menswear outing, it’s nice to see the duo starting to feel more comfortable speaking Valentino, even if it’s with a slightly different accent. The old master himself would probably have never thought of borrowing so liberally from the couture traditions, but by tempering it with some uncompromising masculinity, even dropped shoulders and rounded silhouettes seem perfectly palatable options for gentlemen. Of course, these ideas and methods aren’t new (Raf Simons has been plying between the Romantic and the robotic for years), but the restraint and matter-of-fact styling translate into a very modern sense of luxury for the house.