Stephen Jones

On Monday, New York Men’s Fashion Week was host to the new collections from some designer staples. Sponsored by Cadillac, the show included the Fall/Winter 2016 looks from GARCIAVELEZ and David Hart. Each collection offered something interesting and unique, putting some variety into what can be a very drab and boring season for clothing. Read on to find out my impressions about each.

GARCIAVELEZ

Winter can typically be a drab and boring time for fashion. After all, how good can you look when you’re actively battling hypothermia? But the GARCIAVELEZ’s winter collection makes the typical blacks and grays more appealing (even visually striking) with his creative use of patters. Like colors at the opposite ends of the wheel, the patterns contrasted while complementing each other. Patterns are easy to gloss over; once the eyes get used to one, it becomes just another part of the phantasmagoria of the senses. However, the mish-mash on display here (say, a zig-zag coat covering a blank shirt) kept the designs visually interesting. One of the major exceptions was a shirt and pant combo that was all the same color and pattern: a sort of grayish plaid, making it look more like a hipster crayon than a sensible outfit. On the whole, however, GARCIAVELEZ had one of the stronger collections at the show.

David Hart

David Hart had by far my favorite collection of the show. If a major theme of the show was throwback, then David Hart took its most extreme logical conclusion. These clothes were straight jazz — checkered suits, Eisenhower jackets, bowties, and turtlenecks. None of the models here would have looked out of place in a smoky jazz club in the post-War era. The outfits were all fairly classical tailored, and the colors went across a broad spectrum — gray to red to yellow to blue, a presentation of restrained gaudiness. Now, were any of these outfits particularly “winter”? No. But they don’t have to be; they’re timeless in every season.