Image via Vicky Grout
London Collections: Men (LC:M) is the highlight of the season for anyone in the UK who works in, or just loves, menswear. In the last six seasons, men's fashion has evolved from suiting to something much more experimental and interesting, and Saturday and Sunday saw some incredible designers show some incredible collections.
Right now, it really feels like London is having a huge moment in men's fashion; there's something in the air that smacks of excitement, pushing the boundaries, and inspiration. London is home to some of the most exciting young designers in the world, and LC:M is where they're showing, bringing press and buyers from all over the world along with them. From the revolutionary MAN shows—arguably responsible for the very existence of LC:M—to the tear-inducing work of Craig Green, there's so much to see that it's almost impossible to really get to everything.
As such, Complex was on hand to bring you every alphet, every fire pair of kicks, and all of our highlights from Saturday and Sunday at London Collections: Men Spring/Summer 2016.
Astrid Andersen
Saturday was Astrid Andersen’s day. The evening saw the debut of a collaborative film by Astrid and A$AP Ferg at what was without doubt the party of the season, literally the whole fashion city is talking about it. Partly because people want in on Andersen’s scene, but also because Ferg put on a show and Hudson Mohawk played too. What’s not to like?
So anyway, let's get to Andersen’s show, where Ferg was sat front row. SS16 saw Astrid go hard for what writers at posh newspapers call Chinoiserie, the adoption by westerners of Chinese influences. You know those Chinese style jackets hot girls wear when they want to look even hotter? The male version is called a Changshan, and Andersen’s show was heavy on pieces influenced by the traditional Chinese item.
Working the shine-heavy florals into pieces with all the comfort, flexibility and functional edge of sportswear. A structured T-shirt incorporating fluro bands and Changshan style fabric was particularly on-point. On the head were Coronet hats, a historical rimless hat that got a little love by London’s New Romantic crowd in the early ‘80s. Astrid’s logo is still present but to a much lesser extent these days, and if huge metallic trousers are a bit of stretch for you, view the way they move on the iphone’s slow-mo function—they look truly boss. If you’re still not convinced you will probably be a fan of the trackies with the popper opening down the side. Course you can always look to Astrid to be on top of a progressive sneaker game—this time last year her boys marched the runway in Air Rifts and now we’re seeing them out a lot—this season Astrid’s lads wore the Footscape Magista to dope effect.
Soulland
Soulland are one of those brands that can surprise you. For some, they seem to have come from nowhere, but for others, they’ve been huge fans of the Danish label for years. It’s also a little known fact that the label has a deeply ingrained love for skating at its core, something which makes perfect sense to me when I look at the clothes. It’s also something that makes me swell with pride and appreciation for founders Silas and Jacob's work when I see the fashion crowd at their presentations, loving their work. They more than deserve it.
For me, Soulland has always been about clean, simple clothes made with quality fabrics and quality constructions. But they’ve also always been just that little bit different to everything else you see at LC:M. Last season, their presentation saw all the models stood against green screens, that when viewed through the Soulland app, displayed trippy rendered graphics, which was just mad cool. This season the presentation took place in the same church in Central London, and the settings were the perfect juxtaposition against the clothes and the huge street art mural—created for the show by American artist Charlie Roberts—behind the models.
The clothes were the perfect step forward from last season, and the fabrics centred around linen—the linen dungarees were especially lit—heavy leathers, and denim. As always, the outerwear was mad strong, with the hand-painted leather jacket proving to be the real highlight—produced in a limited run of just ten, each jacket is unique and will be sold as an art piece, rather than clothing. The footwear was dominated by brogues, appearing in solid colours, alongside one silver, and one painted pair matching the backdrop, and casual slip-on sneakers.
Agi & Sam
Not everyone wants to wear sportswear. Shocking right? But a true story. For those guys Agi & Sam the designer twosome consisting of Agape Mdumulla and Sam Cotton make consistently and reliably great clothes, that when worn or seen IRL are obviously the work of talented designers but aren’t in-your-face look-at-how-much-shopping-I-did fodder.
Indeed this season the pair specifically based the collection on the type of clothes they like to wear. Which seems to be lots of dope outerwear, including chore coats and greengrocers coats, a caramel coloured utility waistcoat, and hand painted vertical and horizontal pyjama stripes used in a modern graphic way. There was much use of old-school, timeless fabrics; waxed cottons, corduroy, fur lined collars, brilliant indigo wide-legged denim, and cargo pockets on boxy shirts and wide pants.
These days who is doing the music is almost as important a question as who is doing the styling. In this case it was techno DJ/producer/fellow designer William Richard Green put the soundtrack together wearing a sweater emblazoned TECHNO from his own Studio White Label. Which in a way goes to illustrate that just because Agi & Sam is wearable doesn't mean they’re not keeping it strong.
Agi & Sam said they’d “concentrated on cut and fit,” adding “we spent time fixing a collar, changing a sleeve length, you know the kind of stuff that matters, that makes you look good long after an item has ceased to be a hype ting.
Matthew Miller
Matthew Miller’s show could almost be divided into three: The formal opening looks had a strong sense of millennial Raf Simons with their super sharp tailoring; then there was the smart, loving navy blue Matthew Miller although there was a bit of fraying and deconstruction with some dark denim pieces; and finally a Matthew Miller that had clearly decided ironing clothes is definitely not fashion for SS16.
At first sight though, it was the anti-ironing pieces that stood up. The concept of ironing is a strange sort of needy self-oppression really—spending a couple of hours a week pushing a thing so hot it could strip the skin off your bones across your clothes in the hope that it will please others doesn’t seem an incredibly wise use of our time here on earth.
The anti-ironing, or what Miller’s press release described as a “blend of cotton and metal”, giving the fabric used for the coats and jackets memory material qualities, the fabric of the coats lying not flat but having real 3D form as if the wind was blowing through. Wearing metal in any way will always seem a bit Terminator 2 which is definitely a good thing. The creases were also present in the lighter material on shirts and trousers with the 3D effect provided by the creases alone. Much of the creased material came in a white-flesh-peachy-pearl colour almost like the “nude” underwear white Grandmas buy for sure; a so-wrong-it looked-right choice. What with Cottweiler hinting at it too, the pearl thing seems to be building up into the non-colour of the season.
Sibling
Sibling is a fashion mafia favourite, the three designers have been consistently praised from day one and they’re also massively popular in South Korea’s K-pop scene. They came to prominence making incredible knitwear, but have expanded from there. If you’re in the market for a sheer sweater or cardigan, a glittery knit vest, an intarsia (this is I-know-a-lot-about-fashion code for a pattern or image created in a knit) T-shirt, polo shirt, jacket or, you know, a punk-themed knit leisure suit they’re the masters. Yes they’re cray but so is Comme Des Garçons. Sibling though is also a window, a window onto what 'planet fashion' does if it simply gives no fucks. Sibling are a happy trio. In the past they have themed a show around smiling happy models. This season living life fashion designer style meant bumster trousers, i.e. there was a lot of crack on the runway, jockstraps, athletic and very small vests and knits inspired by American football and portrait painter Kehinde Wiley. Roadman it was not but you know 2pac wasn’t too worried about that kinda thing when he walked the Versace runway back in 1995 so get over it. And like Versace as well as the cray stuff there were some seriously desirable pieces, the op-art geometric pattern knits and suits were boss.
J. W. Anderson
Not everyone is into androgyny but that doesn’t mean the LVMH-backed J. W. Anderson, an undisputed star of the London fashion scene and creative director at LVMH’s Spanish luxury goods brand Loewe, doesn’t have anything to offer. It’s been said many times but Andersen was visionary in pushing forward the trend for men wearing less obviously masculine clothes that’s now caught up with everybody from Kanye, through Young Thug (weird fashion fact yesterday the Editor of the Business of Fashion told me he’s a massive fan), Jaden Smith, and Kid Cudi. And the whole wide leg, little top thing that every designer feels they have to at least acknowledge and every fashion student rocks is almost single-handedly down to the guy. Oh and the ‘70s trend—the high-end fashion industry is obsessed with? That was J. W. Anderson’s doing too or actually maybe Miuccia Prada but the fact that it’s even arguable is a big thing. So to the show. If you’re not feeling the rest look to the jackets. At the show they were the massive standout. They verge on ‘70s stuff you could imagine David Bowie wearing to martial arts inspired jackets, crop tops and kimonos that looked kinda futuristic in a original series Battle Star Galactica/Star Trek The Motion Picture type way and looked super dope.