The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
MILAN, Italy — Neil Barrett evolves incrementally as a designer, through forensic analysis of what once was and what could be again. It's a hit-and-miss process, but when it hits, as it did with his latest collection, it does so with such conviction and authenticity that it's utterly irresistible.
We know the story: the family tradition of military tailoring yielding a genetic predisposition to cuts as rigorous as a surgeon's scalpel. But Barrett has been leaking other bits of bio into his design. His time at Central St Martin's in the 1980s, during a gloriously cultish blossoming of the London underground — The Face, Ray Petri's Buffalo, Goth, look after look after look — wormed its way into the clothes he showed on Saturday, and cast a halo effect over his own signatures: Barrett's hybrids, for instance, stitching together a jacket, a bomber or a biker with a long coat to create a full-skirted trompe l'oeil effect, looked better than ever (especially in black leather).
If there was still something uniform about the overall look — Barrett has always loved a monochrome palette — he used accents of colour like never before: a yellow cable knit over pinstripe trackies, red-striped cadet pants under a grey flannel coat. And there were graphics: the iconic face of Siouxsie Sioux, reproduced on everything from trench coats to track pants.
Barrett also enlarged and softened his silhouettes. The drop shoulder was a major asset with the womenswear he reintroduced to his catwalk. But it was no longer a simple, unadapted adjunct to his menswear. Dropped shoulders, yes, but also an hourglass silhouette, a sense of tomboy embracing womanhood. The boy’s on a roll.
And designer Sabato De Sarno doubles down with his Cruise ‘25 show for the brand, writes Tim Blanks.
From where aspirational customers are spending to Kering’s challenges and Richemont’s fashion revival, BoF’s editor-in-chief shares key takeaways from conversations with industry insiders in London, Milan and Paris.
BoF editor-at-large Tim Blanks and Imran Amed, BoF founder and editor-in-chief, look back at the key moments of fashion month, from Seán McGirr’s debut at Alexander McQueen to Chemena Kamali’s first collection for Chloé.
Anthony Vaccarello staged a surprise show to launch a collection of gorgeously languid men’s tailoring, writes Tim Blanks.