As models walked the runway carrying miniature radios, Belgian designer Dries Van Noten steps away from the some of the dazing prints featured heavily in some of his more recent works. Instead, focusing more on stripes and trim lines.

With everything from Snoop Dogg’s ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’ to The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s ‘Heads Will Roll’ ejecting from the almost indivisible speakers on the red and black radios that gave full effect to each look, the stage was set from the start for a more a younger Dries man this season. Keeping with the timeless-classic sense of appeal that we come back for with each collection, Van Noten honed in on the moderns man’s need for variety, creating both well tailored striped jackets with built up shoulders alongside more slim-fitting looks, topped with slightly heavier shoes. At times, padding even showed through jackets with lacerated arms.

Displaying a color palette a tad fresher than your run-of-the-mill fall collection, browns and navy were your main colors at hand, but appeared lighter than the usual for the season. Perfectly coinciding with the the slim-fitting and sometimes cropped trousers (which may take you back to Rag & Bone Spring 2010).

Typically, trousers are one of the last things I pay attention to looking into a collection, but there is something always so interesting about a Dries pant.

Dries Van Noten: “I really wanted the collection be lighter, less serious and more playful- I want men to be able to have fun with the clothes and be able to easily wear them and play around with them a bit. The fabrics were mainly English- necktie fabrics, hunting fabrics, military fabrics so we really delved into the archives of all the biggest English weavers and reworked it all for the younger generation.”

The Full Collection / 46 Pics
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Last season, Paul Helbers sought out inspiration from New York City, particularly bike messengers, for his collection as designer of the Louis Vuitton menswear label. A season later, we are now off to Vienna.

Inspired by Vienna and it’s artists from the start of the 20th century, a marriage of two extremes are seen through a mixture of a subtle color palette and the clean structure of drawn for the austereness of an age-old city.

In a luxurious series of neutrals, occasionally picked up with more orange-derived tones and yellow neon, old meets in the form of styling and slight detailing. Classic trousers tucked into boots (just as we saw at Smalto) and sophisticate day coats taking on new life with contrast material appearing on it’s upper half, ‘discrete modern elegance’ is the only term fitting to describe the 53 look collection.

As Marc Jacobs states: “I haven’t worn pants in so long but if I was going to wear them I’d wear these. They were very nice and I like the styling- I love them tucked into the boots. As always Paul did a beautiful job: the research of fabrics and the techniques in the assembling the clothes was so sophisticated and so beautiful. He explained to me that his inspiration came from the artists Shila and Kafka, and also Vienna. I think the colour palette was so sophisticated and so elegant- so subtle and beautiful. The leather bags, of course, were gorgeous and so was the treatment of the leather: I felt this collection looked so luxurious and subtle.”

I couldn’t have agreed more.

The Full Collection / 53 Pics
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Targeting a younger clientele, designer Youn Chong Bak fuses the traditional Smalto man with a man more rough around the edges. Yet, still manages to maintain the ‘timelessness-luxe’ sense of appeal that we have all come to expect from the house.

In stark contrast from the Smalto man that we saw back in Fall 2008, this season a more fitted silhouette is seen. Trousers tucked into boots and loosened collars appearing from time to time, the styling can be easily described as something that would interest your modern intellectual, that secretly also has quite a daring side.

As jackets appeared traditional for the most part, at points a saddle stitch appeared on jackets in places that you would normally not find it. One of the collections many little details that overall contributed to the bigger picture. One of my personal favorites being, the braided leather scarves that flared out into a fringe at it’s bottom, usually accentuated with a bare and open collar.

Focusing largely on softness, fur can be now be found lining both hats and jackets. Whilst gloves come in lambskin and leather is thinned to give off a softened texture.

Detailing much appreciated for what would be a perfect winter.

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Starting off a week of shows with a much needed pit stop into Gaspard Yurkievich, I can honestly say that I am not the least bit disappointed.

Going into the show I expected Yurkievich’s usual perfect clean cuts, an incredible crop of both top models and new faces (like new kid on the block Oliver Welton), and a refreshed outlook on what to expect out of Paris through the season.

Leaving guests already in a great mood before the show eve started, bottles of vitaminwater in every flavor under the sun awaited everyone on their seats. Something I don’t think I’ve ever seen done before, but more than gladly welcome again.

As the show started and the instrumental ending to Portishead’s ‘Machine Gun’ played in the background, it was clear that this season’s man is more powerful and quite poetic. It was almost as if the track emphasized each step taken on the runway, which seemed perfectly fitting for the collection entitled, ‘In Love With Beauty’.

Later fading into Fever Ray’s, ‘If I Had a Heart’, the mood in the air was less tense than your average Fall/Winter show. Then again, that could be largely due to the crowds pleasant interest in the bags presented as a result of Yurkievich’s collaboration with Eastpack.

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James Smith/Models1

Thomas Penfound/D1 Management

Matthew Hitt/FM Agency

Peter Bruder/FM Agency

Danny Arter/Nevs

Johannes Linder/FM Agency

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