Looking good gets serious

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-20 16:24

Richard Chai's first menswear show featured gray and more gray, with a host of peacoats, military jackets and a boxy, short-waisted schoolboy jacket suggesting institutional conformity.

Hints of color like plum or mustard daubed a few shows including Spurr, but Duckie Brown's collection with industrial, military and prison influences was far more typical.

Duckie Brown's exercise in conformity included peacoats and sleekly tailored overcoats suitable for the stylized stars of television's Mad Men, set in the 1960s, variously paired with carpenter trousers in flannel or twill.

Miguel Antoinne described his collection as "a move away from casualization", with tailored militaristic looks in somber black and grays.

"It's apparent that super trendy and overdone will not be the approach for fall," says Tom Julian, a brand and trend consultant. "It's back to quality and updated classics with a modern attitude."

Designers face a gloomy recessionary landscape of tight credit, choked retail sales, job cuts and anxious consumers unwilling to spend on much more than necessities.

"The fact is, most people own enough clothes, but they've become accustomed to shopping as entertainment," says Flusser. "They can really hold off now on buying new things. Men, in particular, have enough to coast for awhile."

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