This Season's Most Exciting Clothes Speak Softly but Make a Big Statement
For a minute there, some of the biggest high-fashion houses on the planet got pretty damn loud. It was fun while it lasted (and for some it’s still going), but the pendulum always swings. And for a different breed of designer, a more subtle take on luxury is looking like the way forward. The approach is quieter, but it’s also—perhaps paradoxically—one of the most exciting things going on in the world of men’s style right now.
This fall’s collaboration between Jerry Lorenzo’s L. A.–based label Fear of God and Italian menswear powerhouse Zegna stands as an effective avatar of this movement. “Before we met for the first time, we both instinctively knew about this gap between what’s happening culturally and traditional tailoring,” says Lorenzo of the lead-up to his initial meeting with Zegna artistic director Alessandro Sartori. The resulting collection, Fear of God Exclusively for Ermenegildo Zegna, blends exceptional craftsmanship—the pieces are made in Zegna’s ateliers—with an aesthetic that feels relaxed, refined, and ready for whatever weird world comes after [gestures broadly] all this. Tailored pieces are stripped of lapels or rendered oversize, while streetwear-influenced sweats and overshirts are raised up as something seriously special.
In other words, this is really, really nice stuff that’s meant to be part of your life, not saved for some occasion.“At this level of quality, with this craft and with these artisanal types of finishings and work, this collection could literally say something different,” explains Sartori. But he’s careful to note that there’s a whole ecosystem of other players pushing this trend along. There is, of course, The Row, with its ridiculously high-end fabrics and savant-level distillation of classic and unassuming styles into clothing that’s stratospheric in execution (and price). Or Bottega Veneta, purveyors of an exacting sort of Italian cool that insists on precision in both material and make.
Back state-side, Hilton Turner delivers a style that’s a little more louche, with silky pajama shirts finished with piped seams that look a whole lot better with a robe-inspired jacket than they do languishing in bed. And Japan-based Auralee, which grafts a dressed-up-but-definitely-left-of-center perspective onto everything from sweaters to suits, proves that labels the world over are crafting clothing that’s exquisite and built for every day—or at least every day you’re feeling like actually getting dressed, not just throwing fabric onto your body.
Assembling an outfit in the morning is a reminder of the here and now, and if you’re going to put in the effort to get that fit off, maybe it should pay you back. These clothes—precisely cut and painstakingly considered but (and this is crucial) just as comfortable as those old sweats—are designed to make you feel better IRL. You’ll know it when you slip them on, when you move in them, and, sure, when you get your boy to snap a pic for the ’Gram.
This story appears in the October/November 2020 issue of Esquire magazine.
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