It’s a time of change in menswear. The old guard uniform - the suit and shirting - is no longer dominant, no longer relevant, no longer the requirement of a job and success. Additionally, the notion of ‘sportswear’ really no longer means anything - does it refer to the bold, logo-ed tech work of young upstarts like Nasir Mazhar and Atrid Andersen, or is it the relaxed, informal pieces we’re seeing come out of luxury houses like Bottega Veneta and, today, Fendi? It’s a sweeping word applied to almost everything these days, in a bid to explain to ordinary men why all these clothes are relevant to them. Sound confusing? It is. Despite the fact that menswear is booming, with the luxury market beating the women’s, no-one’s actually quite sure what men want - are they over the taboo of being fashion conscious now, keen for the latest thing? Or are they still creatures of habit, buying the same pieces over and over again? No one’s quite sure, not even the luxury houses.
Never has that been more evident than at today’s Fendi show. Silvia Venturini Fendi had even tried to turn the confusion into a theme, describing the show as a exploration of the ‘encounter/clash of opposites.’ There’s some interesting notions in that - some brilliant designers have played, very successfully, with contrasting the organic and the synthetic, using all that is available in modern fashion to explore new ground. But this show felt pressured, like Fendi was cautious of the new but conscious that she had to accept it. You could feel that tension in the way plain black tailoring would appear sandwiched between leather shorts, metallic polos and a glistening jacket with the now famous Fendi monster eye motif. Or in the way trousers seem to be in a tussle between being an easy jogging pant or a piece of tailoring, or in the way jackets melted from snakeskin to casual green. This identity crisis was surely meant to suggest intrigue. Instead, I wondered who these clothes were for, where they would be worn and what need each piece aimed to cater for. The show notes vaguely talked of an ‘urban uniform for the soulful city dweller.’ But really, who is the Fendi man? I’m not sure, and I’m not sure Fendi’s sure either.
