• Fashion
  • Beauty
  • Watches & Jewellery
  • Culture
  • SUSTAINABILITY
  • Female TV
  • Fashion
  • Beauty
  • Watches & Jewellery
  • Culture
  • SUSTAINABILITY
  • FemaleTV
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
Subscribe Now!
  • Also available at:
Privacy Menu 1
  • About Us
  • Advertise with Us
  • Contact
  • Conditions of Access
  • PDPA
  • Privacy Policy
SPH Media

MCI (P) 032/12/2022. Published by SPH Media Limited, Co. Regn. No. 202120748H. Copyright © 2023 SPH Media Limited. All rights reserved.

  • Fashion
  • Beauty
  • Watches & Jewellery
  • Culture
  • SUSTAINABILITY
  • Female TV

Fashion

Menswear Designers Tackle The Pandemic With Both Hope And Despair

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
Fashion

Menswear Designers Tackle The Pandemic With Both Hope And Despair

These menswear collections mirror designers’ journeys through the pandemic.

by Suzanne Sng  /   February 9, 2021
menswear fall 2021

Covid-19 creations. Credit: Showbit

After coping with long months of isolation and uncertainty, menswear designers such as Paul Smith, Jonathan Anderson, Virgil Abloh and Rick Owens have turned out collections that reflect their personal journeys as well as the global pandemic.

With last month’s Paris Fashion Week held completely in the digital sphere, labels presented their latest offerings in pre-filmed videos or live streams.

While Louis Vuitton’s Abloh addressed being grounded from air travel as well as his African heritage and the Black Lives Matter movement in his Fall/Winter show, Owens took an up-front approach by putting models in face masks, a familiar sight in the new normal.

READ MORE: 6 Men’s Bags Under $500 That You Will Want To Cop For Yourself

Subversive design collective Vetements used the backdrop of hell and heaven for its edgy clothes, while also referencing the storming of the United States Capitol in its collection.

Veteran designer Smith, on the other hand, looked to the past for the comfort of the familiar, while at the same time remixing old favourites for a new future.

Looking on the bright side, JW Anderson’s presentation featured cheerful fruit and vegetables, and lots of handicraft, bringing to mind all the knitting
and banana-bread baking that went down last year.

Ahead, a closer look at some of the collections.


Related Articles

The Coach And Champion Collaboration Will Get You All Hyped Up

6 Men’s Bags Under $500 That You Will Want To Cop For Yourself

The Streetwear Threads You Can Rock For Chinese New Year

https://www.femalemag.com.sg/gallery/fashion/menswear-fall-2021-designers-pandemic-virgil-abloh-jonathan-anderson/
Menswear Designers Tackle The Pandemic With Both Hope And Despair
LOUIS VUITTON
image

Grounded by the pandemic after years of travel, Louis Vuitton’s menswear designer Virgil Abloh recreated a makeshift airport lounge to film his sixth collection for the French fashion house.

Titled Tourist vs. Purist, the collection evoked nostalgia for travel with its jackets with aeroplanes as closures, quilted silver suitcases, jumpers featuring three-dimensional cityscapes and even an LV Keepall in the shape of a plane.

Besides addressing the longing to travel, the American designer, whose parents were from Ghana, also explored his African heritage in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement last year.

“When I grew up, my father wore Kente cloth, with nothing beneath it, to family weddings, funerals, graduations,” he said in an interview with an American fashion title last month. “When he went to an American wedding, he wore a suit. I merged those two together, celebrating my Ghanaian culture.”

Kilt-like pleated skirts were seen on the models, as well as artfully draped lengths of monogrammed fabric over suits.

Abloh added: “I have a responsibility. We said we want diversity, didn’t we say that in 2020?”

“I don’t want to look back and say I turned a blind eye. But you know, I’m an optimist. The future is yet to be decided.”

Showbit
PAUL SMITH
image

Veteran designer Paul Smith spent more than four months alone in his London office last year, musing on his 50 years in the fashion business.

There was no big show to celebrate the milestone. Instead, it was a quietly retrospective time for the 74-year-old British designer.

“I thought, ‘Well, I’m not going to museums or travelling, but I do have all these things around me in this room full of bicycles and books and stuff I’ve accumulated over the years’,” he said in an interview with The New York Times on January 25.

Falling back on his memories and half a century’s worth of archives, his latest collection included mohair knits, preppy plaids and stripes, remixed paisley prints and his signature use of vibrant hues, such as a bright orange chore jacket.

Even as his country was under lockdown, Smith believed life would eventually go back to normal.

He coped by going back to the familiar, such as a modernised Hawaiian print which reminded him of the vintage shirts he stocked in his first Nottingham shop.

Showbit
JW ANDERSON
image

“I spent a lot of the last year thinking about people making and doing,” said designer Jonathan Anderson in an interview with The New York Times last month.

The creative director of JW Anderson and Spanish label Loewe shuttled between London and Paris to produce two separate collections, enduring risky travel and constant Covid-19 testing.

“I think the world is starting to change,” he said to an American fashion magazine about his latest collection for JW Anderson. “I think this isn’t a time for shock – I think we want reality, honesty, to be stimulated in a way that isn’t sensationalised.”

The result was a collection – presented via posters shot by famed photographer Juergen Teller with nonsensical captions – which emphasised handicraft and, strangely, fruit and vegetables.

Radishes, peaches, leeks and more appeared as crochet, embroidery and knits, lending the clothes an air of innocence.

But it would not have been a JW Anderson collection without a play on proportions – in this case, rather extreme trousers. Taking the ubiquitous sweatpants of the work-from-home era, the designer exaggerated them to unnatural proportions as a statement: Here, these are the most high-fashion baggy pants of the pandemic.

Showbit
RICK OWENS
image

Last year was a “very, very dark” time for American designer Rick Owens, who spent large swathes of it in lockdown in Paris, where he is based.

The angry and repressed emotional states he experienced made their way into his presentation, which was held in front of a World War I monument, Tempio Votivo in Venice, Italy, last week.

Black masks covering the models’ faces were a constant reminder of the new normal, while smoke machines spewed atmospherically in the background. The collection was called Gethsemane, named after the garden in which Jesus prayed before crucifixion.

In an interview with CR Fashion Book on Jan 21, Owens described the collection as “a place of uneasy repose and disquiet before a final reckoning”.

“We’re all living in a tense period in history waiting for a resolution, be it catastrophic or rational, in a suspense that feels almost biblical in its drama – primitive and profane.”

Oversized puffer jackets, floor-skimming coats, skin-tight leather and knitwear with more armholes than necessary added to the moodiness of the layered collection.

Showbit
VETEMENTS
image

Vetements went straight to hell, metaphorically speaking, with its usual provocative offerings.

Speaking to an American fashion publication about the collection, Guram Gvasalia, co-founder of the Zurich-based design collective, said the opening section of the label’s lookbook, with models posed against a fiery backdrop, was a reflection of “the hell we’re all living through”.

Faces were ominously obscured by balaclavas, recalling riot gear worn by those who stormed the United States Capitol on Jan 6.

Meanwhile, a bare-chested model sported an anarchy symbol and ripped jeans.

But it was not all fire and brimstone. Things started looking up as the backdrop changed to Earth with greenery and rainbows –although there was a translucent white raincoat which brought to mind the full protective worn by frontline healthcare workers.

On a final note of optimism, the collection ascended to heaven, with fluffy clouds and rays of light bursting forth. The clothes similarly became more angelic, transitioning to evening wear with jackets and tuxedos.

But the ever-subversive label did throw in a slogan tee which proclaimed: “I like fairy tales and financial stability.”

This article first appeared in The Straits Times

Showbit
  • TAGS:
  • jw anderson
  • louis vuitton
  • menswear
  • menswear collection
  • menswear designer
  • rick owens
  • vetements
SHARE THIS ON

Trending

Fashion

The Louis Vuitton And Yayoi Kusama Collaboration Hits Stores On Jan 6

Fashion

The Spirit Of Play Is Strong In Calvin Klein's Lunar New Year Capsule Collection

Fashion

Howl's Moving Castle Is The Star Of Loewe's Final Collaboration With Studio Ghibli

Fashion

Unboxing Chanel's Cruise 2023 Collection With Shye

Fashion

At Fendi, A Poetic Art Project That Pays Homage To The Brand's Roman Roots

Fashion

We Asked The Fashionable Guests At Singapore Art Week 2023 What They're Wearing

Fashion

Bunny-Themed Bags To Tote Around For Your Chinese New Year House Visits

Fashion

Singapore's Young Provocateurs Remember The Late Vivienne Westwood

Fashion

A Sneak Preview At The Uniqlo U Spring Summer 2023 Collection

Fashion

These Lady Dior Bags Are Essentially Art Masterpieces

Fashion

In Singapore, Valentino Unveils A Surprise Tie-up With Artist Pinaree Sanpitak

Fashion

We Say Yes To The Croissant Bag Craze

Editor’s Picks
  • Fashion The Louis Vuitton And Yayoi Kusama Collaboration Hits Stores On Jan 6
  • Fashion The Spirit Of Play Is Strong In Calvin Klein's Lunar New Year Capsule Collection
  • Fashion Howl's Moving Castle Is The Star Of Loewe's Final Collaboration With Studio G...
  • Fashion Unboxing Chanel's Cruise 2023 Collection With Shye
  • Fashion At Fendi, A Poetic Art Project That Pays Homage To The Brand's Roman Roots
  • Fashion We Asked The Fashionable Guests At Singapore Art Week 2023 What They're Wearing
Female Newsletter
Sign up for one of our free newsletters to receive the latest news, commentary and fashion features straight from FEMALE.

By signing up, you indicate that you have read and agreed with our Privacy Statement
Footer Menu
  • About Us
  • Advertise With Us
  • Contact Us
  • Conditions of Access
  • PDPA
  • Privacy Policy
SPH Media

MCI (P) 032/12/2022. Published by SPH Media Limited, Co. Regn. No. 202120748H. Copyright © 2023 SPH Media Limited. All rights reserved.