In case you discovered your self gazing down at your mid-wash denims and chunky trainers after the flip of the brand new 12 months and worrying that perhaps, simply perhaps menswear was starting to get just a little stale once more, permit us to place your thoughts comfortable: it’s not.
Removed from it actually, as a result of 2019 guarantees to be a 12 months of change on the earth of males’s vogue. Excessive-profile label hookups, business shakeups, and a give attention to sustainability are simply a number of the occasions anticipated to rattle menswear’s Richter scale for the following 12 months, and it’s all coming courtesy of manufacturers outdated and new, large and small.
These are the manufacturers that may flip your head in 2019, igniting developments, change and fairly most likely a purchase order or two.
Timberland
Information in October that fashion-week favorite Christopher Raeburn can be taking the reins at American way of life model Timberland might have come as a shock to some, however for others it made excellent sense. Right here have been a label and a designer, each with a powerful give attention to eco-friendly manufacturing and purposeful design, each wanting to take issues to the following stage.
And that’s precisely what we will count on over the course of the following 12 months and past. Raeburn has made it clear he has large plans for Timberland, saying he needs to remain true to the model’s iconic picture and ethos, whereas pushing boundaries to their very limits. Suppose bleeding edge supplies, utilitarian design with a streetwear tinge and garments you’ll be able to put on and put on. Excited? Us too.
Alyx
In case you’d began speaking about your “chest rig” previous to 2018, we’d have thought you have been describing a very advanced inhaler invented to maintain your bronchial asthma beneath management. Now, nevertheless, and thanks in no small half to boundary-pushing vogue label Alyx, we all know that you simply’d be referring to your £400, luxurious Italian-made harness bag.
However military-inspired receptacles are merely the tip of a really trendy iceberg. And whereas the Matthew Williams-led label has been a quietly disruptive power, rising within the shadows for the previous few years – Williams has produced bespoke buckles for Kim Jones at Dior, for instance – 2019 guarantees to be the 12 months it emerges absolutely and crops its flag on males’s vogue. Warcore, anybody?
Louis Vuitton
As one of the crucial historic and revered vogue homes on earth, Louis Vuitton’s appointment of Off-White founder Virgil Abloh as inventive director final 12 months marked the daybreak of a brand new period in menswear.
The first January 2019 was the start of Abloh’s first full 12 months at LV. And following a debut assortment that shook up the style establishment, not simply when it comes to design but additionally with its efforts to normalise variety inside the business, this 12 months guarantees to be a defining one for 2 of the largest names in vogue. We’ll even be maintaining a tally of Riccardo Tisci and Kim Jones for his or her first 12 months at Burberry and Dior, respectively.
Fila
No person predicted it, however the must-have sneaker of final summer season was an reasonably priced Fila design that appealed to each sexes and was simply picked up on the excessive avenue. The Disruptor’s success was the centrepiece in an excellent 12 months for the retro Italian sportswear label (now based mostly in South Korea).
Driving the nineties revival all the way in which to the financial institution, 2018 noticed collaborations with everybody from Fendi to Weekday through Liam Hodges, and that type of momentum doesn’t cease with a altering of the seasons. Look out for extra MVP sportswear, killer collaborations, and don’t rule out an identical streak of excellent kind from Champion or Kappa, both.
Balenciaga
There was a time when sending fashions clad in hoodies, tracksuits and bum baggage down the runway would have been a maverick transfer for a high fashion home – one thing to ruffle the feathers of the high-fashion purists. Right now, nevertheless, that couldn’t be farther from actuality. Clothes that when served as tabloid fodder for scaring suburban mums have gone from park bench to Paris Vogue Week to Primark, leaving no wardrobe untouched alongside the way in which.
This shift in sartorial norms has freed up a place for a brand new renegade motion in menswear – one which Balenciaga (hardly ever a model that does what anybody expects) has been intent on filling with conventional tailoring. Check out the fits from the SS19 assortment on the Spanish vogue home: boxy on the shoulders nonetheless, however in any other case clear, elegant and largely impartial. The 12 months forward may effectively see males’s tailoring clawing its method again from the abyss – and the label accountable is identical one which made dad type a factor.
Nike
Like it or hate it, the discharge of the Yeezy Increase 350 again in 2015 gave rise to a brand new period of sneaker design at Adidas and past. Abruptly, outsized sole items, knitted uppers, sock-like matches and uncaged lacing methods have been the brand new regular. All due to the runaway success of 1 hyped-up launch.
Quick ahead to 2019 and after flying off the cabinets in report time, fetching anyplace as much as £1,000 at resale, it’s straightforward to attract parallels with
Stella McCartney
You realize that monologue that Bane rattled off to Batman in The Darkish Knight Rises? “You merely adopted the dark. I was raised by it, moulded by it,” and many others and many others. Properly, you may apply that very same idea to Stella McCartney and sustainability.
Up to now, McCartney has been ostracised by a few of her contemporaries for her unfaltering dedication to sustainable vogue – not least her boycott of leather-based and fur. Right now, the designer nonetheless has an insatiable urge for food for brand new supplies and new methods of doing issues – a latest, relatively unsung, achievement was a vegan Stan Smith sneaker in collaboration with Adidas. Now the identical individuals who as soon as scoffed are being compelled to observe swimsuit, making McCartney look much less like an outsider and extra like one of the crucial necessary designers of 2019 and past.
Serac
The brainchild of Helly Hansen’s former lead technical designer, Serac is a brand new Norwegian model set to shake up outerwear in 2019. Utilising a British Millerain shell cloth, which is the world’s first fully-washable and waterproof 3L waxed cotton, the label is on a mission to bridge the hole between vogue and performance.
This groundbreaking materials is very technical, but ages and weathers like leather-based, making every garment distinctive to its wearer. And whereas the gathering and manufacturing of the clothes that make it up are nonetheless extremely restricted – every jacket is presently restricted to 100 items which take eight hours every to craft – we predict you’ll be seeing much more of this breakthrough model over the approaching years.
Zara
In 2018, “fast fashion” turned a unclean phrase. And provided that’s precisely what Spanish retail juggernaut
Two fast factoids for you: 1)
Calvin Klein
In late December 2018 it was introduced that Belgian tastemaker Raf Simons was leaving as chief artistic officer at Calvin Klein. After two years that noticed the launch of a brand new luxurious line and artistic freedom for the previous Dior head honcho throughout all collections, advertising and marketing and promoting, everybody was left asking the identical query: what’s subsequent for CK?
Who will substitute Raf? Will the label even rent anybody in that capability in any respect? Will it ship a 205W39NYC spring assortment? Can the model even perform with out a luxurious arm? Proper now it’s anybody’s guess, however 2019 holds intriguing solutions.
Perry Ellis
It’s all change for Miami-based Americana model Perry Ellis. The tail finish of 2018 noticed the corporate go non-public, in a transfer its homeowners say places it in the very best place to develop. We expect which means taking a leaf from the Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren playbooks, by releasing throwback collections which can be frankly much more fascinating than its more moderen output.
Within the quick time period, nevertheless, now we have been handled to a revamped assortment of streetwear-inflected staples, courtesy of the model’s ‘America Perry Ellis’ line. Suppose bleached denim, retro rugby shirts and quarter-zip tops aplenty. To us, it seems to be just like the (re)begin of one thing particular and positively price maintaining a tally of over the approaching months.
Barbour
This 12 months marks the a hundred and twenty fifth anniversary of the legendary heritage outerwear model and it’s celebrating in type. Kicking off with a stellar presentation at London Vogue Week Males’s, Barbour introduced a restricted version line of hero jackets impressed by its intensive archives, alongside a collaboration – the Director’s jacket – with fellow north-east legend Sir Ridley Scott.
Few if any manufacturers do technical heritage menswear higher, so we’ll be maintaining a tally of the birthday boy all 12 months lengthy.
