BEST OF THE SPRING/SUMMER MENSWEAR COLLECTIONS FOR MEN From floral-printed loose fitting trousers, to voluminous oversized bags, this year’s spring/summer fashion comes with a variety of practical must-haves and sporty looks. May it be clear, utility is the season’s newest black. With the 2012 Olympics around the corner, many of fashion’s heavyweights have produced a spring/summer collection with strong references to sports. Miuccia Prada is feeling Tiger Woods during the warmest days of the year, and delivers a collection made up by golf caps, golf inspired shoes, and even Prada-branded clubs. Givenchy’s Ricardo Tisci decides to channel his inner Kelly Slater, through a surfer-inspired collection which sees bird of paradise prints, and sporty key-rings as one of the main must-have … More/

     

MEN’S FASHION WEEK MILAN – WHAT YOU’LL BE WEARING IN AUTUMN AND WINTER THIS YEAR. Declan Eytan, is a Milan based men’s fashion journalist and regular contributor to L’UOMO VOGUE (Men’s Italian Vogue), and the international editions of GQ, Esquire and Playboy magazines. Here, he presents a round up of the key designer collections seen during the recent Milan Fashion Week for men – and his predictions on what we’ll be wearing for AW12. The Autumn/Winter 2012 collections of Men’s Fashion Week Milan taught me that animal skins aren’t just for Cruella de Vil and trophy wives, and oversized shearling coats are likely to become every man’s best friends during the cloudy days of late 2012. Italy is a country … More/

     

Recently whilst at the Gieves & Hawkes presentation at London Fashion Week, we got chatting to Carlos Singh (G&H head of marketing) being the affable chap that he is, Carlos noted our interest in Gieves & Hawkes and cordially invited us to peruse their archive at the legendary Number 1, Savile Row. Now it’s not often I get excited, but this was a rare opportunity, the archive is not open to the public and we were now being invited to visit! Not being one to waste an opportunity we asked if we could fit in a visit that day, cue a couple of phone calls and he’d arranged for someone to show us around that afternoon. A trip across London … More/

     

On London Fashion Week’s Menswear Day, we stopped by later in the day to visit Martin Brighty of tailoring and tie-making dynasty Peckham Rye, London. Nattily dressed in their own cravats, scarves and ties, we are introduced to the Peckham Rye team who remind us what it means to have true gent’s style when it comes to neckwear. The guys are all Londoners born and bred and are reintroducing their tailoring line which will offer customers the opportunity to have a made to measure suit for £750. Tailoring is not new to the brand and Martin has quite a fascinating and colourful family history which I would encourage you to ask him about when you visit his store. I challenge … More/

     

my-wardrobe.com are becoming something of an English shoe aficionado’s ‘destination stores’ of late. With a growing stable of ‘Made in England’ brands including Grenson, Sanders and Clarks the company is also furthering its credibility each season by collaborating with Prince Charles’ favourite footwear brand: Tricker’s. Nor is this ‘bandwagon jumping’, stocking a few bits of entry-priced Grenson to simply please those who’ve recently discovered Northampton footwear. Today the company launches its ‘Shoes Libraries’ concept which allows us to get different styling ideas depending on what outfit you might be wearing (e.g. smart jeans, casual jeans, chinos etc). A lot of gents will benefit from this as some often buy a shoe because they like it, which is a good thing … More/

     

It’s always enjoyable to meet the people behind the brands, blogs or other entities that interest you and London Fashion Week gave us ample opportunity to do so, where we meet shoe designer ‘Mr.Hare’, bespoke shoe makers CarreDucker Bespoke and men’s shoe blogger extraordinaire, ‘The Shoe Snob‘. MR. HARE Firstly, we bumped into Marc Hare, or Mr. Hare (pictured above) as his eponymous label is known. When a label is as feted as his is, frequently appearing in Esquire and other international style mags, it’s easy to imagine grand personas and unapproachable fashion divas lie behind these brands. Mr. Hare was exactly the opposite: informally chatty about his line, his views on what people are wearing at London Fashion Week … More/

     

The madness, mayhem and magic of Fashion season is over for a couple of months now. In the first of our series of reports looking ahead at AW12 collections by our favourite menswear designers and luxury brands, we report on our extraordinary day spent with the Gieves & Hawkes team, whose presentation we were invited to as part of London Fashion Week, Menswear Day, held at Somerset House. At the Gieves & Hawkes presentation we had an enjoyable and in depth conversation with Barry Tulip, impeccably dressed as you would imagine, the new Design Director at the ready to wear line at Gieves & Hawkes. Mr. Tulip, previously of Dunhill and Zegna, is ready to bring his own stamp to … More/

     

For years in the 2000s the classic Prada ‘America’s Cup’ trainer lay in the style doldrums. Sure, it was still well made and still a high quality sports-shoe but the highly recognisable, ‘Prada Sport‘ branded red tab (also known as ‘Prada Linea Rossa’ – simply translated as Prada Red Line) had fallen into the hands of The Wrong People. Who are ‘The Wrong People’? Quite simply, The Wrong People is that collection of usually young men who buy something just because it is expensive and has a logo on it – they have no genuine understanding or appreciation of how to wear the item. So, many gentleman interested in style moved away from the Prada Sport brand altogether and made … More/

     

SPRING/SUMMER 12 MENSWEAR COLLECTIONS: ALL ABOUT AFRICA Any of us who’ve seen any of the recent Burberry Prorsum menswear advertising campaigns (for Spring/Summer 12) can’t fail to have noticed the eye-popping colours, prints and knitwear inspired by traditional Kenyan tribal prints and beading. Prints which have not traditionally been worn by Westerners have been contrasted with Burberry’s always impeccable tailoring and Christopher Bailey’s (the Creative Director at Burberry) unerring quest to re-intrepret and refresh the trench coat and parka each season. Which, he always seems to manage without fail. This summer he shows how to mix up the classic Burberry parka with a colourful tribal inspired shirt.               Do not be intimidated by these … More/

     

Philip Walsh asks “How often should we wear our designer label clothes and should we only ever wear them for ‘best’?” Here at MilanStyle.co.uk we have a friend, this friend, like us, is a sartorial aesthete, however I fear he has a crippling problem; he likes everything he owns to remain looking box fresh and unworn. Now for certain things I can appreciate this conviction, trainers for example should always look pristine (aside from these Maison Margiela trainers pictured above) and t-shirts should always be as white as possible or, at least, not faded. But for near enough everything else, worn in, can look better. Maybe it’s the Sprezzatura in me, but a worn in, beat up Belstaff Panther looks … More/