Flashback: Look Back At Men's Fashion In 2015

WORLD WORE ‘15

Look back in wonder at the year in men’s fashion trends and themes in this flashback. By Daniel Goh

This has been a big, dramatic year in fashion; Not only did men’s fashion thrust forward decisively in looks that completely broke from the past, it zoomed ahead without nostalgia or sentimentality for eras past, and menswear is finally freed to move into the 21 Century. 

Doherty, whom no fashion can now save, looking very much like Stephen Fry.

If Only Pete Doherty Was Slim

There was a sense of déjà vu when Pete Doherty, now a pudgy uncle at 36, appeared at Saint Laurent’s show in Paris last October. The former rake thin Rimbaud of rock (and former squeeze of Kate Moss), who was the “thin-spiration” behind Saint Laurent’s seminal Spring 2015 collection, appeared to be twice the size (and age!) of his former self (albeit still sweaty, unwashed and clutching a pack of cigarettes like a ball of used tissue). Nonetheless, the skinnier than thou models, squashed into frayed jeans and stovepipe leather leggings, a flail of beaded chiffon or a shrug of shrunken jacket recalled the poet/punk of The Libertines in his fey days. If only he were thin again.

In this hit collection for Saint Laurent, Hedi Slimane seemed also to be citing his own gloriously slim self, and by the way celebrating the marginalized, the freak, the fragile, the queen, the poet, making a case of relevance for the disagreeable, disgruntled, and preternaturally sour. That such a stance actually strikes at the heart of, and is a comment on, the happy, shiny hordes of Instagram, the hordes that have clicked their approval in waves of “Likes”, seems to be lost on the Social Media generation. This can only prove that the Social Media generation is dumb and lost and that Slimane is beyond cynical.

(Spring/Summer 2015 examples: Saint Laurent SS 1 8 16 17 38 46 53 61 65; Lanvin SS 8 10 14 23 38 43)

Part 1 of 4 - Part 2 will be posted up later

WEEKKEND READING LIST: Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant

My new obsession is Stephen Tennant: An artist and writer, he was also a great beauty in early youth (he was the Kate Moss of the Jazz Age!). Mostly he's that very English thing - an eccentric. The Philip Hoare biography of Tennant, Serious Pleasures is one of the best books I've read in ages - a serious, addictive pleasure. 

Kate, Black and White

Mrs Hince in Vogue

"She dared me to be John Galliano again. I couldn’t pick up a pencil. It’s been my creative rehab." - John Galliano
The September Issue went to Kate! On the Vogue cover, she wears an Alexander McQueen​ gown, promising an exclusive story and pictures on her wedding (by Mario Testino too, like royalty); Hamish Bowles sits us down with the all-time iconic model:I was wondering why Freja was on the cover of British Vogue - they traditionally put Kate on their September issue - and now I know why.

Kate's Behind

A sneak peek at the cover of the May issue of Vogue Brazil, edited and photographed entirely by Mario Testino, with a very naked (and completely photoshopped) Kate Moss on the cover. It's a distant echoe of that very famous 1973 portrait of Charlotte Rampling by Helmut Newton, of course.

Avatar!

Kate in Emmanuelle Alt Vogue Paris May's Haute Couture story by Mert & Marcus.

Kiss Me Kate!

This is an oddly festive cover... is it Christmas in Paris already?

Terry and Kate

Double The Trouble

The double cover simply means... that the poor photog had to spend double the time/ money photoshopping her to a semblance of Kate's former self.

Feeling Glamourous

Does this not look like a Christmas cover?

Unpublished

Isn't it a wonder that there are unpublished images of Kate?

Miracle Photoshop Lipstick

Anyone would become a Dior Addict because this lipstick obviously comes LOADED with miracle photoshop serum - one quick swoosh and you too will look like a airbrush postcard from 1983. Only the eyeliner looks real. Oh Kate! Whatever will they do with you next?See what she looks like when she removes the lipstick?

Katie's Kate Avatar

Do you remember? When Katie Grand started this magazine she made quite a big deal of not being overly heavy-handed with Photoshop? Ms Grand was going to go against the tide and publish 'real' images: But look at this cover. Notice anything strange? It's so photoshopped that Kate looks like an avatar of Kate (in fact, she's so worked over that she's looking a bit like Karolina Kurkova?). It's so worked over that it is only minimally a photo - it's more like an illustration isn't it? We all know Kate Moss doesn't look like this, don't we? It's an idea of Kate Moss, that's all, just the idea of her.

Ms Moss into Music

Kate is said to be venturing into the music world to record her own album. Of course, it’s not a world that’s all too foreign for her – many of her (dubious) boyfriends, including her current one (very dubious), Jamie Hince, have been rockers. And she’s dabbled in music before too, singing on stage with her unwashed ex-boyfriend Pete Doherty at a gig in 2009, and guesting on tracks for Primal Scream and The Lemonheads. Recently, she’s Bryan Ferry’s Roxy Girl, the face of his latest album, Olympia, and is rumored to sing a duet with him on his next album.
Friends dish that Kate’s album will be “a set of edgy urban songs,” according to the Daily Mail. Another source said that, “Kate’s fashion days are winding down and she’s no longer designing for Topshop, so her dream is to to record an urban album.”

Completely Gone

I also want!!! Whatever they're on, it's completely blown them into another galaxy. Poor Kate, Anna Dello Russo looks like she wants to lock Kate up in her doubtlessly capacious show closet, or one of her vulgar trunks.

Heart Chloe

I heart Chloe ( to me, a much under-rated label by Hannah MacGibbon) and I totally heart Malgosia Bella. Iselin Steiro looks acceptable here only because her drag-ful face is cut in half, otherwise she's just the pretty version of her royal dragness Anna Dello Russo.
As for the Balenciaga ad, the less said the better. I can't say that the pictures actually help the less than brilliant collection. Putting the very, exceptionally dull Giselle in a wig just doesn't help - this girl is nothing without showing skin. I always thought this was clear - Giselle is her body. Give her a bikini (or less! always less!). Besides, hasn't her moment passed? She's no Kate, obviously.

Vintage Kate

Kate now looks like an avatar of herself - so photoshopped is this image that she looks only vaguely like what she might look like. The mouth, in particular, is a truly troubling trout pout, and the nose looks incredibly sharp.
I'm also not sure if anyone wants to smell like a vintage muse - it doesn't conjure anything so much as musty, dusty, worn clothes in thrift shop bins and Chutuchuk market. It's certainly not festive, is it?

Brunette Bombshell

Kate as a brunette bombshell in Vogue Italia. By Nick Knight,styled by Edward Enninful. The story leaves me cold; Mr Knight's photos often has that effect on me, however accomplished they are.

Kate Said

"I’ve worked with a lot of artists — Lucian Freud, Marc Quinn, Tracey Emin, Gary Hume, Jake and Dinos Chapman.A lot of them, really. And, you know, we’d see each other out, hang out at parties and what have you, and over the years they’d ask me to do odd projects. So yeah, I’ve worked a lot with both sides — art and fashion.
I guess I’m adaptable. I don’t know, I kind of go with whatever they want. I don’t see myself as one thing. You know, I turn up at work and they can kind of do what they want with me, really [laughs]. It’s not like there is one look that I specifically do — I’ve done a lot of different things.When I used to do interviews a long time ago, I used to get very ill just worrying about them before they came out. I just didn’t like it. When I first started out I did press because I wasn’t really aware that they would write something really horrible but then they did, and I was like: “Oh no, I don’t want to go back there. I don’t really want to open up myself to that kind of criticism.” And I think that a lot of the time you walk in a room they already know what they want to write about you, so it doesn’t matter what you’re like. But sometimes I will do it if I like the person or the project." - Kate Moss

Best Dressed Woman of the Decade

In the first list of its kind compiled by Vogue, Kate has been honoured with "The Best-Dressed Woman of the Decade" award in their January 2011 issue. (Yikes... it's 2011 already!)That's got to be one potent Bloody Mary! Cheers, Kate! Anna Dello Russo is not very pleased, because she also want.
"At every moment Kate Moss has looked chic and cool. We chose people who were thinking out of the box, women who look as if they're wearing what they really wanted to wear. No one has had more influence for the past decade on the way women have dressed than Kate Moss." - Alexandra Kotur, Vogue style director