The Standout Men’s Collections From Milan and Paris Fashion Week

Prada

“There’s a kind of anti-logic to the combination of the clothes, an oddness,” explained Raf Simons following his latest outing with Miuccia Prada, who had commented on the role of simplicity in this season’s collection – not as a constraint but as a concept for choice. On their watch, in a partnership now two years in, this idea was employed by marrying harsh leather pieces with supple beige car coats; 1970s-inspired check tops featuring playful ric-rac braids followed smart black suiting, in a considered line-up of big hits. 

Read Alexander Fury’s review of the show here. 

JW Anderson

If S/S22 was all about being stuck indoors – Jonathan Anderson told AnOther last year, “Are we at risk of losing a generation through this pandemic, just by them not being able to interact in a normal capacity?”– S/S23 was about getting back outside. Or at least that’s what Anderson’s namesake label, making its Milan debut, suggested. Inspired by Philip Ridley’s 1991 play The Pitchfork Disney, the collection was largely teen-coded, with bike handle bars worn as if breastplates and skateboards had split in two, dashed through knits. 

Louis Vuitton

At Louis Vuitton, a sunshine-flavoured stage invoking the famous yellow brick road set the tone for the house’s final outing under the guidance of Virgil Abloh’s assembled team. Titled Strange Math, the first collection without the late polymath’s counsel was announced with a striking performance from Florida A&M University’s marching band, as 72 polished looks followed – many featuring varying ideas of florals – soundtracked by Kendrick Lamar, who sat front row beside Naomi Campbell, microphone in hand. 

Rick Owens

Informed by a trip to Egypt – and named after the site of the Ptolemaic Temple of Horus, Edfu – Rick Owens’s latest offering was a particularly colourful affair, with shades of hot pink, yellow snake print and, in the case of look 30, a fantastic iridescent uniform interjecting the label’s favoured palette of black (also present). Perhaps most remarkable however, was the series of literal fireballs being dropped by a crane into the Palais de Tokyo fountain at the show’s centre. 

See Paul Phung’s photo essay on the show here.

Fendi

At Fendi, Silvia Venturini Fendi went in hard for relaxed fits that spoke to a classic summer holiday mood, eagerly announcing a post-Covid intention for escape. Accompanied by bucket hats, moccasins and chain necklaces – as well as bags, which were plentiful and took varying forms – daytime denim was a key trope. The house monoprint was mostly whispered, appearing oversized on tops and subtly printed on wafting silky two-piece sets. 

Dior Men

Kim Jones’s interest in the Bloomsbury Set first blossomed in his teens when he moved to Lewes; the town where Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell had once lived in, at the magnificent Charleston House. Jones has since returned, having recently bought a house in Sussex. With this in mind, he dedicated his latest Dior collection to Grant, most deliberately connecting the dots with a series of jumpers based on the artist’s work, and a set dressed up like an abundant, unruly English garden.

Read our guide to Charleston House here.

Loewe

Jonathan Anderson’s Loewe has long been a unique beast, and this season was no different. Looks arrived spurting grass, tablet-covered pieces hung from the body like sandwich-boards, while coats dotted with phone cases and other such tools appeared like inverse Uten.Silo units. A bold marriage of nature and technology (some of the screens even showed fish swimming around), the lawn-covered garments were a collaboration with Spanish bio-designer Paula Ulargui Escalona, and had been grown over 20 days just outside Paris.

Bianca Saunders

Titled Hard Food – named after Jamaican cuisine (namely boiled dumplings, bananas and yams) – Bianca Saunders leaned into a palette determined by soft tones (sand, teal and burnt orange) for her second show in Paris. “It really is examining the body and examining the idea of movement and material, how that mixes in,” she told AnOther. GQ editor Pierre Alexandre M’Pelé and poet Kai-Isaiah Jamal both walked, wearing silk pieces that engaged with this idea of movement. 

Read our interview with Bianca Saunders here. 

Craig Green

Ever since his debut with Fashion East, each Craig Green offering has inspired some version of awe. This season, there was a particular softness to the designer’s work – most prominent in the early peach and later pink looks – while a certain lightness, unique to Green’s aesthetic, was afforded through the white PVC backdrop. Hardware, a Green staple, was present too, both in the extreme and the subtle, as large angular objects made way for padded details, riffing on the “distant new summit” described in the show notes.

Mowalola

Burglarwear, Mowalola Ogunlesi’s first catwalk outing since 2019 – also her post-Fashion East debut and first time showing in Paris – was inspired by “all kinds of thieves, from people who work on Wall Street to online scammers,” she recently told Vogue. Here, the London-based designer embraced primary colours, leather and restriction: lace up details were a key motif, as barbed wire clung to boots, balaclavas were modified into tops, and several models had their hands ‘bound’.

Comme des Garçons Homme Plus

Disturbing half-face masks, distorted, punk-coded hair and a horror movie soundtrack announced Rei Kawakubo’s return to Paris, following two years of Comme des Garçons shows in Tokyo. Inspired by medieval court jesters, this season the designer focused on frock coats, with jackets (nearly all collared and button-fastened; mostly black) appearing in each of the 34 looks. Brightly coloured checks and stripes balanced the sombre note, with a series of white looks acting as a palette cleanser of sorts.

Dries Van Noten

Dries Van Noten read the room this season, looking to subcultures established in Right-leaning times – the Zazous in Paris in the 1940s; London’s Buffalo scene that arrived under Thatcher – for his S/S23 collection. Held on the rooftop of a car park, the show was heavy in suit notes (pinstripe pieces in particular were a favourite), while feminine silhouettes were prominent (vest shapes especially); elsewhere, there were fantastic mismatched prints and pieces that riffed on sportswear.

Isabel Marant 

“My man is an adventurer, an outdoor lover with an urban twist,” Isabel Marant told AnOther last season. Certainly, there was a playfulness to the label’s latest menswear offering. “A bond of brotherhood,” according to the press notes, the collection – all tie-dye and bright colours, oversized jackets and bleach wash denim – paid homage to the 90s, exploring musical genres of the time with aesthetic takes on grunge and techno.