Gant is a historic American label—full name: Gant of New Haven—but the second-act success story of its revival owes as much to the Swedes as to the WASPs; it s now Nordic-owned. The label s dual citizenship gave Michael Bastian a jumping-off point for Fall. "We ve been spending so much time in Stockholm," he explained. "We really wanted to celebrate the two sides of Gant s life: the whole U.S. heritage, but also now this cool, modern, sexy Scandinavian thing that has crept into the label in a big way. What you re seeing is a hybrid of America and Scandinavia."
The individual pieces—sport coats, parkas, puffer vests, embroidered khakis, camo pants, and so on, for men and for women—are true-blue U.S.A. But the styling, according to the designer, comes from the Swedes. "Swedish winters are not for the faint of heart," Bastian said. "It s dark, it s freezing, but somehow they manage to look cool, chic, and sexy while totally layered up—which is hard in a big parka."
A big parka s not the half of it. It wasn t uncommon for looks to include three or more shirts, plus a coat, plus hats and belts, watches and ties, color piled on color, print on contrasting print. But take off any piece, put it on a rack, and you ve got what smells like a sale. And, even layered nearly to the point of exhaustion, the pieces did have the kind of off-kilter, cocky cool that s native to rambunctious kids. What sort, exactly? "We thought of the guy as part of a cross-country ski gang—which is kind of funny, because cross-country skiers don t form gangs," Bastian mused. "Then these girls were schoolgirls who were almost abducted by this gang." Freedom fighters, meet the Winter Olympics. Stranger things have happened.
