Menswear, unlike womenswear, is less susceptible to seasonal “trends” or shifts that can happen in the blink of an eye in womenswear. Short, long, print, solid, big geos, ditzy flowers can all be here and gone, over before they began in the women’s fashion sector. Fast Fashion has adopted this to the extreme, building capsules that are for the most part copied directly from designer runways at a fraction of the price. I remember a visit with my then CEO of Gap Inc. in Chicago walking through H&M, pointing out to him the copy of Stella McCartney’s collection, Celine, and Isabel Marant, color for color with imitations of the original fabrics and silhouettes. For me, these “wear once” items were more marketable at H&M prices rather than the original. Who really does want to pay a small fortune for a high fashion designer piece that stales quicker than a loaf of bread?
Menswear generally stays away from fast fashion trends, and most successful brands build real clothes for their client’s lifestyle needs focusing on fabric and color to drive each season. As a Custom-made menswear brand, our unique business model allows us to work directly with our client’s needs with touches of personalization, giving him the opportunity to express himself rather than us dictate a point of view. Occasionally a new item or idea will come to market and influence taste for example, the appearance of shirt jackets a few seasons ago. The Shirt Jacket has been around for some time but has become a go-to for guys looking for that easy outerwear piece to layer and that, in some cases, can substitute a sportscoat. It is now evolving into its own sub-category, each season evolving with new subtle updates keeping it relevant. Some menswear ideas are very gimmicky, which, I have to say, are invented exclusively for the American market, where the heavy marketing similar to an infomercial of the 70s provides seemingly unique ideas that for most manufacturing experts are totally normal. I don’t want to mention brands, but we all know of a menswear brand that marketed an untucked shirt as a revolutionary idea when in actual fact, it was simply marketing, in a very loud manner, a shorter version of a dress shirt. Something easy to achieve for us and anyone else when finishing the hem of a shirt. Shorts and pants with built-in underwear, plastic adhesives to put under a collar or down a placket to stiffen and straighten edges, and the slew of “Shark Tank” ideas chasing the next big idea, presented under this auspice that they are meant to grab our attention but in reality most already exist in apparel in one form or another with a technical solution for every need.
Personally, I always try to be attentive to everything that happens in our industry, including the gimmicks that men respond to, underlying the need rather than the result, and design for a solution rather than adopting a gimmick.
I also watch the European menswear shows, including reports from Pitti Uomo – the men’s trade fair twice a year in Florence, which I used to attend and have been an exhibitor there many times. This show kicks off next year’s men’s season for global buyers, descending on Florence from all over the globe, and consists of hundreds of brands. Twice a year, the runway shows follow in Milan and then Paris, which just finished a few days ago, showing next year’s Summer ’24 season. This timing for menswear is necessary for ready-to-wear production and is generally how the rest of the market flows globally. It can spin heads for those not used to the complicated timing and hype around these shows and kicks off a crazy calendar for Couture, then the Womenswear RTW calendar, including New York.
As I have said before, the current shift is certainly away from bold, logo-driven, street-influenced collections, with “Slow” fashion, timeless design, and a need for quality over quantity leading the charge towards less disposable and more investment dressing for men. Things are loosening up silhouette-wise, and the ultra-skinny pant has more or less disappeared from Europe, with softer fitting shirts and pants the new go-to not only on the runway but in the streets too.
