S/S 22 Decoration : a key feature for menswear The 7 June 2021 - Fabrics - Designs

This season, the frontier between the virtual and the real world narrows and infuses the creative approach to designs. Shine adopts holographic effects and delights in creating movement in forms and colours. Vibrant and coloured in an RGB version, it creates electric undulations, like digital bugs, creating an atmosphere that brings to mind the extreme world of video games. Produced on silky and sensual bases, the forms and elements are twisted, crossing and interlocking as if produced digitally, to be used like virtual layers on male shirts.

The call of nature has become an irrepressible urge, reconnecting with the elements an obligation, and this forms part of the creative landscape for next Spring-Summer. Aquatic backgrounds evoke the power of the elements and are produced in gradients of blues to imitate towering waves. Cold pastel watercolours create undulating movements to offer a more peaceful representation of the sea. On more technical backgrounds, the tachism spirit is reworked in shades of blue, to imitate the ocean.
Adopting darker and more digital chromatic approaches, decorations plunge us into strange aquatic depths with hypnotic powers, bringing a captivating mystery to the outdoor wear of explorers for next S/S.

A thirst for escape and a desire to return to an almost-forgotten exoticism is also expressed by themes influenced by travel to distant climes. Designs are inspired by naive scenes, like postcards coloured in orange shades. Comforting like the warm air of summer evenings, these designs offer a nostalgic reminder of past vacations. Hand-drawn designs, as if from exotic travel journals, combine animals and lush vegetation. Worked in cold tones, they suggest captivating turquoise waters and decorate men’s shirts in a delicious retro spirit: a way of rethinking ubiquitous Hawaiian print shirts for summer. This evocation of seaside breaks and picture-postcard beaches combines with linen-based materials on shorts or casual shirts for high summer. Bolder stances are taken with knitted fabrics on unisex sweat shirts and tee-shirts, illustrating a newly-found freedom as we follow the American dream into exile on mythical Route 66.

Our need for expression and freedom is combined with an XXL scale in floral and plant-inspired patterns. Reinvigorating and restorative, the designs tell of vigorous nature: the vegetation and flowers are oversized and produced in Technicolor. Landscapes, and foliage in particular, are confirmed as essential elements of printed masculine collections and find a new expression through these enlarged scales, as if to express a need to breathe and think outside of the box. Flowers are no longer limited to the female wardrobe but are generously present in menswear in a spirit that is free of all diktats. Hibiscus flowers proliferate while their petals are generously scattered in colours that are not typically floral, to create a luscious, almost surreal jungle.  Leaves and stalks redefine flora like an unreal Garden of Eden. Abstract or naive, elements such as palms, exotic flowers and fruit combine with accumulations of unexpected geometric elements that are inspired by the Memphis Movement. Backgrounds are full and expressed in unrestrained graphic and colour contrasts – oranges mixing unashamedly and tastefully with Parma violets, to find another, more eccentric identity in menswear. These patterns willingly combine with fluid viscose-type materials to create casual items that are both playful and elegant.

The genderless spirit features in the season’s decorations. Pastel tones and softer palettes hesitating between warm tones – baked oranges and gourmet pinks – and cold shades, are accompanied by gradients of stripes that bring to mind the delightful colours of summer sunsets. In technical versions, they are particularly suitable for sportswear.