MAN at London Fashion Week

The last day of fashion week is marked by Men’s Day, when the focus shifts away from the girls and onto the boys for a time – and deservedly so. As I arrived outside the Royal Opera House for the MAN show, where normally the street style photography army would be focusing on the high heels and ‘it’ bags sported by the female fashion editors, today’s sartorial delights came in the form of workman-like boots, brogues, and snappy tailoring.

For the last 13 years the MAN show, in association with Topman and Fashion East, have been doing a sterling job of showcasing up-and-coming design talent. As a city, London could be accused of neglecting menswear somewhat; other cities have a whole week devoted to it, not just a day. This may well be true, but what I saw from the balcony of the Royal Opera House indicated that for what London lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality.

The three young designers chosen for this season’s MAN show were Martine Rose, Matthew Miller and Shaun Samson. Rose kicked off the proceedings with a youthful grungy aesthetic consisting of some very striking customised CAT boots, flashes of neon, denim and culottes. I cannot proclaim myself an expert on men’s fashion but what I liked about the collection was the balance between the wearable (the boots, the denim shirts) and the more avant-garde (the culottes). Neon green and pink t-shirts were softened by translucent white overshirts, so that there was a hint of colour, but the effect wasn’t blinding.

Next up was Matthew Miller’s offerings, which trod a more minimal, sporty line for the most part, but with some amazing pops of colour, including some cut out brogues in bright blue and a more subtle grey, that I immediately fell in love with and nearly fell off the balcony in my attempt to get a closer photo of. A collection of highlights, another very strong look was the pastel pink and grey suits, with touches of bright blue and yellow on the pockets – again hinting at colour but very much keeping it wearable – making Miller’s the most ‘grown-up’ of the three designers.

In a nod to the English summertime (particularly the one most recently experienced) many of the models wore white plastic raincoats, which when combined with an all white ensemble made them rather resemble a forensics team, but otherwise added a complementary sports-luxe aspect to the assortment.

Rounding the show off was Shaun Samson adding a burst of sunshine and wanderlust with his Mexican blanket prints, inspired by Californian surf culture. Relaxed trousers in muted colours accompanied these, as well as colourful socks with black brogues (a perennial amongst the men I see in the street style blogs). Much like Rose, Samson’s collection screamed ‘youth’ – and there was more than a touch of Camden market teenager style in the colourful stripes of the Mexican prints, rucksacks with customised shoulder straps and the grungy long hair of the models tamed with matching headbands.