MENSWEAR SPRING 2013: BOTTEGA VENETA

Tomas Maier's collection has a feeling of out-of-the-city escapism and the freedom of the open road; this is of a piece with the rest of the collections seen thus far. The overall trope seems to be ease and an escape to a more innocent time. There is a hint of the 1970s hippie movement, full of peace and love.

At Bottega Veneta, the fringe and exaggerated eyelet closings for collars are childish clothes, and have a Robin Hood quality about them. Are we playing Sherwood Forest today? Lacing was used rather than buttons, a frontier touch, with matching fringed booties that immediately recall the happiness of playing at cowboys and Indians.


 Little boys grow up into jocks with an emphasis on the athletic seperates of youth, a hot teenage brother going off to a game perhaps, with the sporty panels and zip-fronts.

The colour scheme in this passage is has adult sensuality, and the fabrics have a sweaty sheen.

Mainly, the shapes have the easy fit of clothes that can be pulled over heads, like most children’s clothes, such as T-shirts; The majority of tops were in fact collarless and based on the tee.

Innocent days: A dreamy floral, which appeared halfway through the show, in ensembles of gauzy layers of floral print is as soft and feminine as it sounds, and rendered the most straightforward jackets a cute ‘play-date’ quality. Along with the tunic shirts, long-over-longer overshirts that covered the crotch give a neutered, sexless effect, an obvious retreat from alpha male virility.