Consuelo Castiglioni s collections for men pose a curious problem. If her womenswear is a movable feast of color, texture, and provoking intelligence, her men s equivalent has often seemed like the sartorial equivalent of watching paint dry. And dry is so often the word that comes to mind when one reflects on the resolutely low-key nature of clothes whose tonal changes and shifts in silhouette can be measured in micro-ticks, rather than the electric jolts that power the women s collections. Fall 2013 didn t upend that state of affairs, but it did introduce a gratifying wild card in the form of art director Dean Langley, who is working on a photo book about the collection that will be privately published by the Castiglionis in a month or two.
Langley s vision for the project is a severe, monochromatic distillation of the post-punk seventies. "No Wave" is his own reference point. Maybe it was a professional awareness on Consuelo s part of seeing things through another s eyes that brought a sharper, stronger edge to the clothes. Coat hems were unfinished; trouser hems adjusted with straps, like a combat pant. There was an industrial feel to the metal closings on a leather jacket or the duvet layer that zipped off a gray flannel jacket. An exploded floral pattern on a pair of trousers could almost have been one of Paul Simonon s bleach splatters for The Clash. But there were also the signature touches of surreality that make Marni so special. An item as classic-conventional as a parka turned to reveal a back panel of rich nutria, like the beast within was now without. An equally classic oxford cloth shirt was infected with gray knit, as a long vertical band or as half-sleeves.
It was, said Consuelo, the first time that a music element had been incorporated into the clothing, inevitable when you re collaborating with an English art director of a certain age. So the clothes had a beat. And, if it wasn t quite the rhythmic throb of rebellion that the designer fancied, it still put a little no wave lead in Marni s pencil for fall.
