Men'S Wear Week Autumn / Winter 2021: Return To Daily Life And Share Touch

Although the calendar of the new year has been opened, the aftermath of the epidemic in 2020 will inevitably spread to 2021. Many of the fashion week and men's wear week scheduled for January this year were forced to cancel or postpone to February. However, such a storm seems unimportant to Milan and Paris, which hold up half of the fashion week. In a year of "new normal", two large autumn and winter men's wear weeks have been carried forward as usual: from January 15 to 19, Milan's autumn and winter men's wear week will be held in 2021; then, Paris men's wear week will be held from January 19 to 24.

Milan: return to the comfort of everyday life

Under the strict public gathering restrictions, the current Milan men's wear week has chosen to present in the form of comprehensive physical digital, which allows brands to freely decide to display fashion in the form of entity fashion show video or static exhibition.

Different from previous years, this year's Milan men's wear week also carried out a fashionable "co branding" with the Milan Fashion Film Festival. This year, Danish designer jannik wikkels ó and his Copenhagen brand Han kJ ó benhavn brought a short film called "the Rose Fairy" for men's wear week in Milan, which tells a tragic story about romantic heroism and revenge. Through the combination of fashion and film, a 14 minute "super long" feature film is used to convey to the world a new consensus that "although the epidemic is fierce, fashion will last forever; even though offline shows disappear, other" shows "are still alive.

In this life and social life is almost completely digital, people have a strong demand for life comfort. IC photo

In this life and social life is almost completely digital, people have a strong demand for life comfort. The 39 fashion brands of this season's Milan men's wear week have high spirits and focus on reassuring affinity. There are also seven new "contestants", including Lagos space program, Tokyo James, bloke and solid Homme, who have officially joined and made their debut in Milan men's wear week. One of the most notable is Raf Simons' first men's collection for Prada. Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, two of Prada's creative directors, say that because people don't have to deal with more social situations, they have more time to get along with each other. So this season they are focusing on warm, close fitting items, ranging from jumpsuits, turtlenecks to polo shirts. They also use different textures and jacquard patterns to give these knitwear a warm and soft touch. In addition, Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada have deepened the classic element of the brand's iconic triangle, combined with RAF style hues, to make the whole series visually distinctive.

Ermenegildo Zegna also pressed the brand reset button while releasing the film "the re (set)". Creative director Alessandro Sartori abandoned the traditional sense of solemnity of the brand, and let the models in the film change into trench coats with wide robes and soft wool lined moccasins, and walk, eat and watch TV in rooms after room. With monochromatic and asexual clothing style, it interprets the relaxed and simple life of people during the epidemic isolation, and describes the designer's expectation for a pure and undisturbed future.

"What is normal today at a time when everything is not normal?" When Fendi's spring / summer 2021 menswear collection was presented last summer, Silvia Venturini Fendi, the creative director of the brand, said that she wanted to present a slow fashion collection more based on the needs of daily life. In this Milan men's wear week, Fendi continued the pursuit of vitality and comfort in the previous series with the theme of "what is normal today". Designers use loose tailoring and soft fabrics to redefine the classic men's wear. The models wear colorful printed overcoats created by British artist Noel fielding or bold monochrome fashion of orange, blue and green, and stride in front of the immersed mirror neon lights with fast-paced BGM, bringing the audience Fendi style optimism and positive energy.

Paris: Awakening fashion sense with abstract

If Milan's autumn winter men's week is a pragmatic proposal for future fashion, then Paris men's week is totally on the opposite side. This season, Paris men's wear week, which also chose the full-scale online show, combines the "super concept" styles such as exaggeration, weird and avant-garde, and constantly awakens people's sensitive sense of fashion by endless abstract and brain hole design.

JW Anderson uses the still life lookbook shooting method to show the design concept of "when the body can't meet, sharing the touch of objects can also promote people's intimate relationship". Inspired by the 17th century Dutch still life painting and the creation of British painter William Nicholson, the brand uses pumpkin and peach as patterns, and uses cabbage, cauliflower, pumpkin, potted plants and other props in the shooting to display various unexpected and humorous shapes. With the original flint like fur color, huge triangular trousers, gold collar collar and blue coat, it gives people a surrealistic feeling like living in a fairy tale.

Virgil abloh, artistic director of Louis Vuitton men's wear, creatively uses a creative paper cup as an invitation to explore the issue of unconscious bias. The use of a variety of fancy patterns and production techniques to guide the audience to reflect on the rigid boundaries of occupation, gender, race and so on. There are not only the mix and match style of suit with Scottish plaid skirt, but also the crazy elements of wearing Notre Dame and Paris tower on the body. All kinds of strong and bold combinations show personal style.

Kim Jones, the artistic director of Dior Dior men's wear, always likes to seek inspiration from artists. In the spring and summer 2021 series, he got the cooperation of Ghanaian painter amoako boafo, while the autumn and winter 2021 men's wear series cooperated with Scottish born artist Peter Doig to interpret the luxurious dresses with high temperament from the perspective of men's wear. In Peter Doig's works of art, Kim Jones found eye-catching colors and romantic fantasy materials such as ships, starry sky, lions, etc., and integrated with the embroidery decoration of architectural carvings from the French Academy of fine arts, making fashion constantly creative, walking along the border of fashion and art, exploring the charm of cross-border integration.

Do your best in a difficult situation

From last year to this year, the suspension of global travel, the closure of retail stores, and today's "show" have weakened the vitality of the fashion industry to a certain extent. Take Italy as an example, compared with 2019, the income of fashion industry decreased by 25% to 61.2 billion US dollars in 2020; exports decreased by 22% to nearly 52.1 billion US dollars; while the French clothing market also narrowed by 17% to 18% in 2020. Only those brands with greater influence in the digital field and able to export products to China are in a slightly optimistic situation Severe financial situation.

But it is precisely because of the epidemic that fashion brands are rapidly increasing their investment and upgrading their online business platforms, and this investment is gradually gaining returns. According to the data, in 2020, a quarter of online luxury sales come from consumers who buy high-end luxury goods for the first time; 45 million people attended Milan fashion week online in September last year. Capasa, President of the Italian fashion chamber of Commerce, said he "couldn't even think about it" a year ago.

"We are at the peak of the digital revolution, and the epidemic is just accelerating the digital revolution," Pascal Morand, executive chairman of the French Fashion Federation, said in an interview with crfashionbook recently. The digital mode of fashion week will never replace the physical show, but it will enrich and expand creative expression and communication to a large extent. " He believes that in the future, even if we return to the physical show, the digital dimension will still exist. Because it is not only a measure to enhance resilience, but also a driving force for innovation and creativity. "We have entered the 21st century. In the past, numbers were complementary to entities, but now they are the opposite. In all segments, the share of online sales has increased from 13% to 25%. "

But Pascal Morand still stresses that some of the key elements in the fashion industry cannot be replaced digitally. "Digitization has lost the sense of rhythm of fashion week," he told AFP, while the fashion industry essentially needs intuitive feelings such as dynamics, fabrics, fluidity and accuracy. "The visual experience on the screen will never be the same as the reality. In terms of contrast, color and depth, the digital dimension is far from the visual resolution of the human naked eye." Therefore, he prefers to call the current digital Paris Fashion Week "an episode in experiencing life". In the post epidemic era, he imagined, fashion week would become more open to creative expression. "We note that a lot of film and video producers, comic book and game designers are involved, and this is an extension of creativity to other areas."

This is the worst of times and the best of times. As Capasa said, it is hoped that as the vaccine development process accelerates, the schedule of fashion week will gradually return to normal in the summer of 2021, "and at present, what we need is to do our best and live a good life."

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