Enormous knitted mittens, bizarre hats made out of wooden planks, models with ‘blacked out’ faces, and men sashaying down the catwalk in frilly dresses.
This year’s Men’s Fashion Week has been nothing if not outlandish.
The three-day event, which started at the MAN show on Monday with the aforementioned plank hats and blacked-up faces, has seen designers from Vivienne Westwood to J.W. Anderson via MAN, Topman and Shaun Samson seemingly compete to out-crazy each other on the catwalk.
The London event, sponsored by Topman, sees 60 menswear designers showcase their wares for autumn/winter 2013 in front of assembled press and buyers from over 45 countries – and is a showcase for what is a £6.5bn fashion industry.
Earlier on in the week, MAN, a collaboration between Topman and Fashion East, kicked off the craziness with models wearing lengths of splintered four-by-two across their faces. And things never recovered from there.
Martine Rose’s A/W 2013 collection took inspiration from the traditional pub with garments made out of beer mats and bar towels.
Sibling, a collaboration between designers Joe Bates, Sid Bryan and Cozette McCreery described as being ‘all for one and one for all’, sent out embarrassed-looking models clad in enormous, loose-knit jumpers and mittens, complete with snoods that pulled up over their heads. Many of the models would no doubt have preferred the garments to cover their faces too.
A few wore knitted jumpers with ‘Please Kill Me’ spelled out in flowers on the front – echoing the thoughts of the beleaguered models wearing them, perhaps?
Sibling’s design crew may have had good intentions, but in the real world, those looks were more for one than for all.
At J.W. Anderson the humiliation of the models was made truly complete, as the designer sent out his clan of put-upon male beauties wearing frilly shorts, leather dresses and frill-trimmed knee-length boots.
One blond looked so down in the dumps it’s a wonder he didn’t tear the offending garment off and run for the hills.
Then again, in those shoes, he would have had a job.
Model David Gandy, who is a British Fashion Council member as well as an ambassador for Men’s Fashion Week (known as London Collections: Men – said at the beginning of the event he wanted London to become the number one menswear fashion destination in the world.
One thing is for sure: it would be a lot easier for it to become weirdest.
Stars who gathered to take in the sartorial circus included rapper Tinie Tempah, rocker Ronnie Wood, model Oliver Cheshire and actor Benedict Cumberbatch – all who seemed able to watch an entire show without crumpling into fits of giggles.
Whether any of them will be calling in any of the outrageous outfits to wear for their next red carpet event is another matter altogether.
Somehow, with those knobbly knees Ronnie Wood has, you just can’t imagine him in a pair of frilly shorts.
