For the first time this season, Yigal Azrouël separated his men s and women s collections, giving each its own runway show. That presumably meant a lot of extra work for the designer (not to mention the behind-the-scenes team racing to keep up with him), but the payoff was that the split gave each collection a little space to breathe.
It also pointed up the diverging paths of Azrouël s men s and women s offerings. For women, Azrouël continued to streamline, paring down the layers that once defined his style. For men, he hewed to more familiar territory: lived-in separates with a faintly tribal beat. Men have been getting more comfortable seeing their own knees these past few seasons, and Azrouël s Spring proposition is for shorts, shorts, and shorts, many climbing to mid-thigh (one imagines they ll be lengthened a bit by the time they hit the sales floor, but maybe not). The silhouette is wide and boxy, allowing for the designer s standard slouch. It s a more aggressively fashion-forward look than Azrouël has offered in the past, right down to the cutout sandals debuting on the catwalk. If a few of the pieces—the one-piece shorts suit in particular—seem like a stretch for the Azrouël guy, it shouldn t be enough to give him serious pause. What s good here is what s always been good: masculine leathers (like a distressed sheepskin baseball jacket) and the faintly military outerwear, from a cotton khaki parka to a lambskin-accented trench shown, like one or two others seen this week, unburdened of its sleeves.
