The young and trendy take centre stage during the menswear at Milan Fashion Week

Young designers took the spotlight during menswear previews at Milan Fashion Week, offering fresh silhouettes in new proportions and reinterpretations of old summertime favorites.

Prada men’s spring/summer 2018 collection. Luca Bruno / AP
Powered by automated translation

Young designers took the spotlight during the second day of Milan Fashion Week on Sunday, offering fresh silhouettes in new proportions, and reinterpretations of old summertime favourites. Here are some of the highlights from the menswear previews for next spring and summer.

Prada reality

Miuccia Prada took inspiration from graphic novels for her latest collection, which aims to create a dialogue between the virtual world and the real world.

She employed two artists – James Jean, from Los Angeles and Ollie Schrauwen from Belgium – to create illustrated stories that covered the walls of the showroom and became the prints that defined the menswear previews.

The scenes included a robot monkey, and an oversized spider descending to pick up houses.

Nylon jumpsuits defined the Prada silhouette, belted at the waist and gathered at the ankles and cuffs with plastic Prada labels. Shirt collars were turned up. There was also a shorts version worn with Prada men’s knee socks and pointy leather shoes. The silhouette was repeated in casualwear, with meshed sweaters in horizontal stripes tucked into houndstooth-pattern trousers turned up into a thick cuff. Sandals with socks anchored those looks.

Textures at Ferragamo

Guillaume Meilland’s second collection for Ferragamo is inspired by the Mediterranean coastline shared by his native France and adopted home of Italy.

The looks are defined by texture: cable-knit fishermen’s sweaters, velvety shorts, corduroy trousers and suede laser-cut tops, all hearty fare for wind-swept seaside strolls. The designer also added whimsical touches in the form of seahorse prints and coral key chains.

Ferragamo’s footwear included penny loafers or slip-on moccasins with rubber soles, adorned with the trademark buckle for the city or rope accents for the seaside.

Brutal fashion

Lee Wood laid the seams bare at Dirk Bikkembergs during his second season as its creative director, with a clean collection that included patchwork trousers and intarsia knitwear.

Wood said he was inspired by the brutalism architectural movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s that stood against adornment.

“I wanted it to be like men should be,” Lee said backstage. “I don’t want to see men all pretty and perfect. I think a man should be rugged.”

Neat T-shirts with scooped necks were paired with urban patchwork trousers cut from natural fabrics. The cuffs are turned up to reveal rough seams. Heavy boots and utilitarian sandals anchor the looks.

Suit jackets are worn with shorts that are nearly bloomers in proportion, while some trousers were festooned with maxi-pockets.

Yolo from Korea

Korean designer Munsoo Kwon made his Milan debut, in the Armani theatre, with a triptych collection that includes pieces based on European tailoring, Korean military wear and a series of character looks. The thread that connects them all: the “You Only Live Once”, or “Yolo”, phenomenon.

The 37-year-old Kwon expresses his whimsy with out-of-proportion cuts: boyish striped sweaters that are part of his character series are gigantic, with wide, trailing arms, dwarfing the wearer.

The military looks are elongated and soft, not the usual regimented rendering. And the tailored outfits are clean and elegant, featuring pinstripe trousers with long belts worn with a pajama-inspired top and a trench coat with bell sleeves.

School’s out for Sunnei

The hallway of an artistic high school was the runway for the Sunnei brand by designers Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo. The occasion: last day of school.

“For us, this is an expression of total freedom,” Rizzo said of the collection.

The looks are more artsy student than beach, even if the striped button-down tops and shorts recalled beach umbrellas. Suits featured boxy jackets and athletic drawstring trousers, which could be worn with a plasticised denim overcoat. Footwear included sling-back trainers.

DSquared2

Dean and Dan Caten, the Canadian twins behind the DSquared2 label, made their mark on Milan with a neon maple leaf on the former distillery where they showed next year’s warm weather looks for men and women.

The designers put a jangle in the models’ walk with buckled leather straps in neat rows up the sleeves of sweaters, down the legs of trousers and leggings and across boots.

Hawaiian floral prints were the accent of the season, with floral shirts paired busily with leopard leggings or worn over the trademark Canadian plaid. Womenswear featured dramatically layered long ruffle tulle skirts that were often paired with simple T-shirts. Men also can indulge in some light ruffles down the front of their tank tops.

The headgear of the season: a military beret over a baseball cap.

* Associated Press