New York Men's Fashion Week Report: Fall 2009 Collections

ANDREW HARMON

Andrew Harmon has been roving among the shows at New York's Mercedes Benz Fashion Week for Towleroad. Harmon is the former West Coast Editor for DNR/Menswear and a contributor to Los Angeles, The Advocate and Women’s Wear Daily. Here's his initial report.

In an airy SoHo fashion presentation last weekend, 33 models all took turns at artful disaffection. They slouched on park benches. They loitered next to expired parking meters or ignored unfinished games of backgammon. One stood in an antique phone booth and gazed blankly at the scuffed receiver. "Probably waiting for a call from the unemployment office," the Tom Ford-clad gentleman standing next to me quipped as he snapped his gum.

Welcome to New York Fashion Week, now a reluctant harbinger for what may be the great purge of ailing American labels.

Thom Browne’s hometown productions have been exported to Milan this season, fashion magazines continue to hemorrhage jobs, labels like Obedient Sons and Daughters have hung "Be Back in Two Years" signs on their design office doors, and an industry crowd awaits the revelatory but exits many men’s shows looking, well, Xanaxed. The accompanying music did little to quell the paranoia, what with pianists banging through Brahms cadenzas on out-of-tune uprights and shrill recordings of minimalist string quartets piped over collections destined for the Barneys New York Barker Hangar sale in Santa Monica. That’s if they make it to production.

(Calvin Klein backstage image — Models.com)

To be sure, credit is due for any label with a show-must-go-on mentality, particularly amongst the emerging set. And unlike several European designers, most here focused more on what they do best — aspirational sportswear — rather than on fuzzy social commentary. Contrast that with condescending proletarian themes at Prada and environmental clichés at Versace, which showed images of melting glaciers in a move straight out of the Edina Monsoon playbook of runway production ("Bubble, I want four huge video screens down either side of the catwalk. I want to flash up pictures of sad-but-beautiful children, happy gay couples, slogans like 'World Health!', 'No Pollution!', 'Fashion Cares!'")

In New York, Band of Outsiders gave us models loafing among gorgeous things. But it also gave us hope. In the past I’ve been wary of this line — not because of its exorbitance or ultra-svelte proportions (Browne’s shrunken style maxim continueth), but because for at least a year, nearly every major men’s fashion spread was strangled by its $130 skinny ties, as though creative director Scott Sternberg had some backroom dealing with a cabal of stylists.

No matter: the Hollywood agent-cum-designer’s toggle coats, wool tuxedo jackets and impeccable oxford shirts fulfill even the most elaborate French boarding school fantasy. It was a thoroughly articulated vision of how his man should dress, and it was unsullied by economic jitters. You could tell Kanye West was taking mental notes as he worked the room.

Elsewhere, dramatic outerwear appears to be designers’ salvation. At Calvin Klein, Italo Zucchelli showed some of the best specimens in his metallic collection, including a cobalt bomber that looked like it had been molded from spacesuit scraps. Duckie Brown’s superb waxed anoraks in blaze orange outweighed the hats with globe-sized puffballs, balanced on models' heads like Rajastani women coming home from the market. I didn’t know whether to smirk or yawn.

Duckie Brown show video, AFTER THE JUMP...

It would be unfortunate for the economy to claim legitimate talent along with the riff-raff. Simon Spurr’s eponymous line is among the former. A Ralph Lauren alumnus, his label is just getting started. The presentation notes cited 2001: A Space Odyssey as muse, but I pictured James Bond: The Undergraduate Years. Tailored, delicate puffy jackets in amber that hit perfectly at the waist, cashmere blend peacoats and peak lapel jackets in velvet would all make Miss Moneypenny blush and fantasize. After hours, of course.

I also hold out hope for Michael Bastian. Though I could have snoozed through two-thirds of his show, the second act was what I usually loathe in men's wear but hoped to see anyways: wayward fashion. There were military jackets and oversize canvas bags, chunky knits with colorful teepees, suede peacoats with faded glory written all over them. In other words, gear destined for entitled city kids taking a cross-country trip in a VW bus that stalls somewhere along the way, someplace like Joplin, Missouri. It may have been the show’s devil-may-care styling. But it was hard not to extend a hitchhiker’s thumb in solidarity.

Video of the Duckie Brown show, AFTER THE JUMP...

(photo credits Marcio Madeira)

American Soccer Imports Another Male Underwear Model

American soccer looks like it'll get another boost in the briefs with the announcement that Swedish Arsenal footballer and Calvin Klein underwear model Freddie Ljungberg is joining Seattle's team:

"Seattle Sounders FC has a news conference set for 11 a.m. today at Qwest Field, at which the club is expected to announce the signing of Swedish star Fredrik Ljungberg as its designated player. Ljungberg is a midfielder who has played for West Ham United and Arsenal in the English Premier League. Major League Soccer's designated player rule allows each team to sign one international player, with no more than $400,000 of the player's salary counting against the team's salary cap. The MLS cap this season is $2.2 million, according to Sounders FC's Web site."

Garrett Neff Next in Line in the Calvin Klein Brief Brotherhood

Garrett Neff has been chosen to show off new Calvin Klein's Body and Body Stretch underwear in magazines and on billboards this fall.

DNR reports: "Shot on location in Miami by renowned photographer Bruce Weber, who shot Calvin Klein Underwear’s first ad campaign 25 years ago, the sexy black-and-white images epitomize the very clean yet sensual aesthetic that Calvin Klein has become so well known for. Neff, who is the face of the company’s fragrance, Calvin Klein Man, was featured alongside Kate Bosworth in the spring ad campaign for Calvin Klein Jeans. He succeeds Academy Award–nominated actor Djimon Hounsou as Calvin Klein’s latest body."

Here are two images from the campaign. The third follows AFTER THE JUMP...

A Garrett Neff Explosion

Model of the moment Garrett Neff, known to many as the face and body of Calvin Klein Man and Calvin Klein jeans, seems to be everywhere these days. Out just posted a Georgia O'Keefe-inspired shoot featuring the beauty called "Splendid Isolation" shot by Greg Lotus which you can check out here (and with regard to the previous post, let's hope that antler was one shed naturally).

Neff is also featured prominently in the new "Sport & Beaute" issue of L'Officiel Hommes, below.

One more shot from inside that shoot, AFTER THE JUMP...

Hong Kong Will Not Arrest 27-Story Nearly Naked Man

Regulators in Hong Kong, who received complaints of indecency about a 27-story Calvin Klein billboard featuring Djimon Hounsou draped on the side of the city's soon-to-be-leveled Ritz Carlton hotel, took a good look at it and decided it wasn't indecent. The billboard will stay up until April 15, at which time the wrecking crews will come and the city will lose its erection.

Garrett Neff for Calvin Klein Jeans

Garrett Neff, who looked a good ten years older in his ad for the Calvin Klein MAN fragrance, is back for Calvin Klein Jeans. Two more shots AFTER THE JUMP...