Fifty years ago, Angry Young Men prowled London. Plus ça change. Anger is once again the driving force of today s youth as Ennio Capasa sees it, and his mandate at Costume National is to channel a young man s feelings. On his mood board backstage was Mick Jagger s mugshot. The boys who took the catwalk today, to a thudding Clinic beat, could ve been his latter-day inheritors, down to the shags. As it turns out, many of them were plucked from the London streets.
If Capasa once skewed more decorative, he s long since burned off the fat. A scattering of lapin-felt fedoras inspired by David Bowie s lent a glamorous touch, but on the whole the collection was tough, leathery, unembellished: skinny skin pants and zippy biker jackets, cropped tailoring and double-faced black and white coats.
It didn t feel exactly revolutionary, but it won the guys endorsement, which just about closes the loop. The boys say, Wow, I want that, " Capasa said backstage. The last one of them was Capasa s 19-year-old son, a psychology student in London. The pull of Britannia is strong, it seems, and probing the angry depths is shaping up to be a family affair.
