Advertisement

Menswear SS18 round-up: next summer's hottest trends from art vibes to anoraks, mega-mini shorts to totally tropical shirts

AFP/Getty Images
AFP/Getty Images

1. Tropical shirts

Far, far easier to grasp than overt maximum leg exposure (see below) is a patterned shirt. This is perhaps not a trend but a summer given. The perfect festival/holiday look that shakes off Monday-Friday with a knowing breeze. These have been in great evidence this season.

Balenciaga’s feature palm trees, sports cars and planes while Stella McCartney’s are emblazoned with parrots. Fashion alert: parrots were also clocked at the excellent Craig Green show in London.

Hawaiian florals appeared at AMI on shirts, shorts and even a coat.

Louis Vuitton, with its custom- made Drake soundtrack, similarly offered very, very good printed shirts featuring motifs such as black lillies or bamboo. The cut was oversized or double-layered.

(Louis Vuitton Men Collection Spring-Summer 2018/2019 © Louis Vuitton - All rights reserved)
(Louis Vuitton Men Collection Spring-Summer 2018/2019 © Louis Vuitton - All rights reserved)

The other Vuitton moment? A technical clog. Yes, that’s right, a clog, worn with socks. Fabulous.

2. Short-shorts

Bam! Thighs are in. Designers from Prada to Dries Van Noten have decreed that shorts for next summer are mega-mini.

In Milan, Mrs Prada was talking backstage about virtual reality and human stories. But this was a show that rippled with masculine sexiness, though as is the Prada way her thigh-grazers came with awkward yanked up socks, the top half tucked in.

Prada SS18 menswear
Prada SS18 menswear

In Paris, at Palais de Tokyo, Rick Owens’s runway became a scaffolding rig reaching high into the sky. His first model descended in tight short-shorts, no top, while a double-bum bag affair swung from his hip. I could bang on all day about how staggeringly good this show was; a designer quite literally at his peak.

Elsewhere, Van Noten and Dior Homme featured shorts whose shortness was almost engulfed by the top half. In other less extreme short news: cargos are also back — see Martine Rose, Versace and Missoni.

3. Roomy tailoring

Conversations around suiting in recent years have gone something along these lines: in order to survive they must modernise. This has generally seen suits appearing in a more relaxed order, stripped of formality. Made easier.

The opening look at Balenciaga was a rumpled and oversized lime green blazer with jeans.

At Marni it was jacket and trousers fashioned in contrasting pinstripes and worn with wonky ties.

Dressed-down pinstripe suits were also on the Versace runway, a look that Donatella argues is, when cut correctly, the “chicest thing for men and women.” But let’s pause the suit conversation briefly because what was most persuasive on the runways was the argument for a pair of very chic and roomy tailored trousers.

At Hermès, in a confident collection of typically elegant ease, there were trousers of wide-legged perfection. They were styled with simplicity — a tucked-in shirt, an easy sweater, a great pair of leather sandals.

Hermès SS18 menswear
Hermès SS18 menswear

This shape was also aced by the likes of Lanvin, Dior Homme and Acne Studios.

4. Art vibes

It’s no longer enough for fashion brands to simply show clothes. They need to tell compelling stories.

This season, collaborations came thick and fast, and particularly with artists. Off-White had Jenny Holzer create light projections for its show in Florence.

Prada commissioned graphic comic-strip style prints by Ollie Schrauwen and James Jean. Fendi brought Sue Tilley, famously painted by Lucian Freud and now an illustrator, to create drawings for shirting, accessories and knitwear. Japanese artist Pater Sato was name-checked at Stella McCartney.

Wales Bonner, the emerging London-based label, included Chris Ofili drawings on shirts and T-shirts.

Marni, no stranger to arty relations, delivered a cracker of a collection featuring trademark off-proportions and glorious layers. Here, illustrative works created by Magdalena Suarez appeared lovingly on swatches of fabric tacked to striped shirting.

Marni SS18 menswear
Marni SS18 menswear

Lucas Ossendrijver of Lanvin, who sent out a very coherent mix of tailoring and workwear, explained that for the prints this season the team took photos of tourists in Paris at random. These were then painted by a street artist in Montmarte and used on shirts.

5. Anoraks

Fashion is often accused of being out of sync with the seasons — spring/summer clothes are delivered into shops in January.

Here’s the good news: Balenciaga’s Demna Gvasalia has made the geeky tech anorak a thing whatever and whenever.

Balenciaga SS18 menswear
Balenciaga SS18 menswear

Staged in a sunny clearing in the Bois de Boulogne park in Paris, his collection was dedicated to young dads and even featured some carrying or walking with their children.

Alongside jeans, hoodies, fringed leather and even a Balenciaga bike, these colourful outdoorsy coats fashioned in Gvasalia’s trademark oversized silhouette looked great.

This type of coat was also backed at other power brands, including Valentino and Lanvin.

Meanwhile, the jumpsuit, another ode to clothing with a utility bent, is also having a moment; Mrs Prada duly confessed to being “obsessed” with them.

Simon Chilvers is style director of matchesfashion.com