Yesterday, London Fashion Week Men’s drew to a close. Here, we provide some simple ways to incorporate the season into your wardrobe now
The once concrete distinction between womenswear and menswear is becoming more and more blurred. Over the latest London Men’s Fashion Week, which concluded yesterday, this shift was never more evident, with the A/W19 season embracing gender fluidity more than ever before. (See the collections of Art School, Edward Crutchley and Mowalola at Fashion East, who celebrated a playful approach to dressing, and Alex Mullins, who employed an all-female-identifying line-up for her runway.) Here, we round up five styling tips to take away from the shows, to be incorporated into your wardrobe now, or later, or whenever really. Because in 2019, anything goes.
1. Dare to wear an ostentatious hat (above)
A statement hat won’t be a styling tip that suits everyone and certainly isn’t for the faint of heart. But, if turning heads (lol) in ostentatious millinery is indeed your thing, then look no further than the likes of Charles Jeffrey’s feather fascinators and Edward Crutchley’s sculptural mesh fedoras, made by the one and only Stephen Jones. Craig Green showed headpieces in the form of flowing nylon shower caps, an ideal protective solution for those who have just undergone a keratin hair treatment on a rainy London day.
2. Transform your basics by choosing leather
Investing in a piece of leather clothing is always a good idea, as it can transform even the most simple outfits – think knitted polo necks, cotton shirts and blue jeans – into a look. This was the case at Chalayan, where simple fisherman’s smocks were transformed in supple black leather, and at Daniel W. Fletcher, where a suit was anything but dull when tailored in leather. Patent coats and trousers reigned supreme at John Lawrence Sullivan, in cappuccino and oil-slick shades, where crocodile-print leather corsetry and souped-up bondage pieces were seen at Art School.
3. Embrace head-to-toe colour
Craig Green also gave us bold colour in more waterproof ensembles: crimson, magenta, azure, canary and cobalt. Yves Klein blue opened the Fashion East show, with Robyn Lynch’s army of elevated sportswear. If the head-to-toe approach – Green and Lynch both opted for this – seems like overkill, utilise pops of neon yellow, as Alex Mullins did to punctuate her mostly beige and brown palette, and like Chayalan, where a highlighter-hued rollneck peeped out of the top of a dark navy coat.
4. Don’t shy away from doubling up on denim
Once a fashion faux pas relegated to the mid-00s history books, double denim is no longer considered naff or for members of B*Witched alone. Daniel W. Fletcher ensured that a raw denim two-piece was anything but tacky, with matching jackets and jeans. Liam Hodges acid-washed his double denim, and Bobby Abley chose to combine colour and co-ordination, with a bubblegum pink iteration of the trend.
5. Bare slivers of skin with strategically placed cut-outs
Flesh-baring cut-outs were all the rage during LFWM A/W19, and whilst you may risk mild frostbite during the colder months, catching a chill is worth it because it just looks so good. The likes of Art School created geometric slashes in the shoulders of T-shirts and A-COLD-WALL* showed jackets with lozenge-shaped perforations dotted through the fabric. But it was Fashion East’s Mowalola who won the prize for the most daring cut-outs, with leather pieces that had been cleverly slashed to just about cover your modesty.
