This was the show where it was announced that menswear is going to have a fashion week all of its own, and it’s about time. It was decided due to a growing amount of talented menswear designers who simply do not get a chance to show during London Fashion Week as the places are so limited for the one day. So from June the fifteenth to the seventeenth this year there will be an official opening ceremony hosted by the Prince of Wales at St James Palace and from there-on-in we will witness a momentous day in menswear history.
The show was James Long; a great place for an announcement of such calibre, as Long being one of Fashion East veterans and one of my favourite designers of the season. His Autumn / Winter collection was inspired by the bohemian swagger of the Rolling Stone and by Edward Burtynskys‘ photographs of quarries, depicting the wilderness enforced unto the natural environment by making quarries. The textures in the collection certainly reflect the quarries in Butynskys’ photos as does the colour pallet of soft blacks, greys, browns, reds and burnt oranges. The knitwear was kept classic with minor alterations in the yarns of varied thicknesses and length to suit any weather conditions. Thick pullovers with prominent cable designs were worn on their own, v-neck cardigans were tucked into trousers with shirts and a thin twin set sat on top of a shirt with an embellished collar.
A rounded collection with a good number of James Longs’ trademark knitwear pieces, it’s almost refreshing (at least to me) to see this much knitwear for men in a single collection, as that is something which I do not believe has been explored enough in menswear. Perhaps with June coming up we will see more knits on the catwalk, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed until then.
There are clearer backstage images of the James Long collection in Dazed Digital right here.
{All images by Alexandra Textiles}
House of Knit 