It’s been brewing all season. From Kenzo’s romantic Hawaiian idyll to Givenchy’s menacing tropical prints, Comme des Garcons’ layered pyjamas to Walter Van Beirendonck’s exuberant Caribbean patchworking and even the obliquely tribal swagger of Christopher Shannon’s monochrome tassels. But it was Topman Design who pulled all that latent, vividly eclectic globetrotting energy together, a rich, decadent Marrakesh blitz of sunburnt colours and languid silhouettes.
For a whole generation of postwar writers, artists and designers – from Bowles to Genet to Saint Laurent – the louche exoticism of Morocco represented a luxurious modern Eden, ripe with guiltlessly hedonistic sensuality.
But the success of the Topman team’s spin on this well-trodden route lay in adding a blast of breezily modern youthfulness. Intricate scarf patterns and psychedelic landscape prints were tempered with taut, long-line tailoring in sombre urban shades. jackets and silk shorts skewed the silhouette in a relaxedly schoolboyish direction, emphasised by loosely-tousled banded knits in slabs of earthy colour.
Bohemian in spirit but coolly urban in its’ execution, (and evocative of Scottish designer John Ray’s underrated work at post-Ford Gucci) this latest outing from Topman Design was a further step in its’ evolution into a standalone menswear voice, mining iconic period reference and filtering through its’ own distinctively London Edge.
Jake.
Backstage Images by: Sam Wilson
5FWS RECOMMENDED OUTFITS
As you know I love man clutch and I think they are really fashionable and trendy. I really appreciate that Topman re-invented it and put it in his S/S 2012 collection. I also love bulging jackets and straight leg trousers.
Totally in love with those extra shorts in chic fabric and this floral shirt.
