Hed Mayner at Paris Fashion Week

The Israeli Designer’s A/W 2023 show was a study of menswear’s nascent possibilities. And its limitations.

 

Clothes have limits imposed on them by society, physiology, and meteorology. It’s every designer’s job to work within these limits and to nudge at (and sometimes burst through) the fences.

Sure, the revolution can be fun. But are we witnessing something more right now – a paradigm shift that creates lasting change?

It’s almost impossible to divine the permanence of changes at Paris Fashion Week 2023. But let’s try…

 

Changes in menswear are political as much as stylistic. And politics, like style, moves in circles.

 

Here are some of the menswear trends we’re witnessing –

• stark asymmetry (shirts that are longer on one side than the other).

• alpha dresses as stratified by Thom Browne.

• oversized outerwear – a practical answer to the question, “What do you give the man who has everything?”

• very voluminous in places where cut and fold usually bite.

 

These equate – as Hed Mayner has it – to “bent-ness” in the sexual and experimental sense. 

He’s right to differentiate, because what’s happening – and gender fluidity is only one of the changes – is a re-shifting of political and social norms. 

And these affect the accepted symmetry, fit, and appropriacy of menswear. A shift that is not against these valid markers, but to a position that interprets them less fastidiously.

 

Symmetry, fit, and appropriacy tend to re-assert themselves, regardless of stylistic leanings

 

How far the boat drifts from the proverbial shore is ultimately a practical concern. And even at Paris Fashion Week, common sense will cast its anchor no matter how wild the currents. 

Proof – there are still a lot of suits in Mayner’s collection.

Notes of Blandness

 

Blandness is of greater concern in menswear right now. Many critics see ugliness as fashion’s nemesis, but good-looking models can sometimes turn ugliness into a riot. 

On the other hand, blandness is sometimes mistaken for cool and avoids a better definition.

 

Blandness is worse than ugliness. Ugliness has power. Blandness has the power to influence nothing.

A celebration of the fluid form in recent seasons has seen a devolution of the male ego into a kind of urbane greyness. 

It is Autumn and winter, but greens and reds would’ve brought some natural fire to Mayner’s Paris Fashion Week show.