Flashback: Look Back At Men's Fashion In 2015 (Part 3)

WORLD WORE ‘15
Look back in wonder at the year in men’s fashion trends and themes in this flashback. By Daniel Goh

Prada went dopey for denim in an almost-all denim collection

Dopey For Denim

Very much of this new Youthquake is the importance of denim. Jeans are here to stay. Perhaps it recalls the time when fashion was still young and innocent (1950s), perhaps it is nostalgia for a time when work was physical and visceral rather than taking a selfie and posting to Facebook or pretending to be a celeb with a slyly-plotted OOTD. Prada, which is as avant-garde and thinking as they come, and always social commentary, devoted its entire collection to denim.

(Spring/Summer 2015 examples: Prada SS 1 4 24 25 etc; SL SS 52; Gucci SS 28)

Talk Nerdy To Me

Did you notice the trend for nerdy/studious glasses this year? It replaced the hipster Ray-Bans as the de rigueur frames, and celebrate the perks of being a wallflower: Standing out in a We-fie. When everyone around you is being a total glamazon-influencer, you need to be a total nerd, just, you know, to stand out?

(Spring/Summer 2015 examples: JW Anderson SS 29; Prada SS 35 36 44 47 8 12; LV SS 5 7 18 33 35 37; Gucci SS 6)

Part 3 of 4 - Part 4 will be posted up later

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

3 ALTERNATIVE CHRISTMAS STORIES

JF's Christmas at the Pool

"It's the eve of Christmas eve, 'round 1pm, one of those very quiet times at the pool, and so I was washing up with the shower door wide open, just so to keep an eye on my stuff which I'd left on the changing station ahead of me. You know me, I'm not shy like that. 

So I'm working up a treat with my new handmade geranium essential oil soap, I always use bar soap, I don't fancy gel. And I turn around and suddenly this tiny Chinese Hobbit, not very old, probably in his early thirties, was sitting right next to my stuff, so needless to say I had to keep an eye on him. 

The ACS Swimming Pool where so many things happened in my secondary school days.

Consciously nonchalant, acting oblivious, I continued soaping up and down my smooth flanks and sides, but became increasingly irked when I realised that I was putting on a Christmas show for that guy who kept gawking unabashedly. I really just couldn't hold it in any longer so I said very loudly, projecting across the room: "Excuse me, but what the flying fuck are you staring at?" 

"Ohhh... Ahhh, I wanted to ask you if I can borrow your soap?" he replied lamely.

So I said, "My soap isn't between my legs, you fuck!" 

Still relentless, he had the cheek to say, "Why do you shave down there? It's so ugly..." 

At this, I hurled my bar of soap in his face, hitting his right eye, and only then did he scurry off, Arena trunks, rubber sandals and drippy hair. 
I wasn't a marksman in the army for nothing."

Plaza Singapura in 1977

JZD's Christmas AT THE PLAZA MALL

Last night, amidst the plastic and tin foil-y Christmas decor at the Plaza Mall, JZD told me why he’s perpetually depressed. "It's not just Christmas," he said. As I suspected, it was about his family, a broken home and worse. His depression wasn’t about Nelson as I had thought, whom he had just met, and was all excited about; All anxious and nervous that it may all turn out to be naught. JZD isn’t quite as confident as he liked to present himself to be, but just as insecure as his good friend G, who no longer lives with him. They fought over rent, amongst other things, and G moved back to her parents' last Christmas.

KL model Haikal Hazman Hashim 

AY's Christmas Online

"So I met this dude online last Christmas, and he's a Chinese dude. We have been talking for a year now and indeed, he's very entertaining for a chat buddy. We would chat every day without fail, about this and that; However, when I asked him what race he preferred to date, I felt saddened to learn that he preferred to date a Chinese dude. I know it's his preference and what not, but I’m afraid he won't accept me as a potential date, because I'm not Chinese. I have yet to tell him that I’m Malay, so he doesn’t know this, even though we've been chatting for a year. He’s seen my photos though, but he doesn't seem to think that I'm Malay. 

Should tell him my race or just wait? I'm really confused..."

SPRING 2015 MENSWEAR: THE NUDE MEN UNCOVERED

Bottega Veneta

Calvin Klein Collection

This is a lesson in styling: If you look beyond the pale pink/ beige monochrome of these very different collections, you can see that the looks break down to pretty much the same items; I think the germ of the idea of athletic wear is there, also the idea of underwear, the referencing of women's lingerie but styling makes it all so different, and that includes the choice of model. Bottega Veneta's has a ballet dancer's langour, while Calvin Klein's has more of a pornstar appeal.

Bottega Veneta

Calvin Klein Collection

HOTTEST MALE MODEL OF THE MOMENT: JIN DACHUAN

My new obsession.

COUGARRR!!!

Don't you love this? The latest Vogue Hommes cover certainly stopped me in my tracks and isn't this what a great magazine cover is supposed to do? Wouldn't you let Marlon Texeira grab you like that (and more!) and isn't Stephanie Seymour stunning? 

But domestic violence and women’s advocacy groups are up in arms over the magazine’s Terry Richardson cover. Only in America, I'm telling you. Sanctuary for Families, Safe Horizon, Equality Now, and the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women are saying that the image connotes domestic violence with sex and glamour (only in America!). The groups have reportedly written a letter to Condé Nast, protesting the promoting of choking as “a sign of passion rather than violence” and asking that the magazine be pulled from newsstands. They’ve already received some 200 signatures (but that's not that many what? You can get more just by posting pics of a handbag what?) on their online petition on Change.org backing up this request. Only in America could they not tell that this is banal fashion magazine posing and imagery and pretty tame as far as most of the magazine's intended audience is concerned. 

Natalia!

Monday's Muse: Zhao Lei

Chinese model Zhao Lei is my new obsession; He's studying for a medical degree and his ambition is to have his own fashion brand. Hobbies include basketball, swimming and music.
I like him for his essential 'niceness': he just seems so nice!

Weekend Reading List: Fashion

“There’s only one thing in life and that’s the continual renewal of inspiration.” - Diana VreelandI forgot to say before that just before Christmas I recieved a couple of books that I wanted but never got down to buying; I guess I didn't want them badly enough. One was Diana Vreeland: The Eye has to Travel. I spent a very pleasant afternoon looking over every page with BG on his sofa, feeling excited and inspired. After that we went outside and repotted a cactus, and pruned back his passion fruit vine. Reading and gardening: I can't think of a more agreeable way to spend a Sunday afternoon - unless it's to work on a painting or drawing, but that's just me.
Lots of you would rather hit the gym, I'm sure, or trawl a 'sauna', but different strokes for different folks, as they say (I'm quite sure it should be 'folk' not 'folks', by the way).Anyway this book made me look at Carine Roitfeld's Irreverant with a bit more perspective - not that Irreverant isn't a splendid overview of Ms Roitfeld's work so far. It is, and much of it is excellent and definitive, and I'm her fan. Also, I like the personal bits of information, and the archival photos of her family. The thing I object to is the title, as well as the sense the book projects that her work, or her attitude actually pushes the moral or aesthetic envelope in some extreme, innovative fashion. You must be very short-sighted to not see that what she does had already been done half a century ago at least. Her ouevre is but an echo of the truly shocking (and yes, irreverant) path scorched by Helmut Newton, Chris Von Wangenheim (see below), Guy Bourdin and Robert Mapplethorpe. So accomplished, yes, irreverant, hardly.And can someone tell me how someone as immaculately stylish as Ms Roitfeld begot a daughter who looks so common? In Julia Restoin Roitfeld's every slutty outfit, one can see that Carine's style really isn't for everyone.
I'm also struggling with the magazine Industrie (the one with Franca Sozzani, the editor of Vogue Italia, on the cover) and also Love (Kristen Mcmenamy). Poor Ms Sozzani is striving, isn't she, to fill Ms Roitfeld's heels, to be the queen of fashion? The grizzled one wants to be irreverant too! But she succeeds only in being disagreeable and frankly repugnant - the interview amply illustrates the reason why fashion people have such a negative vibe, and why they should remain behind the masthead and not appear on the cover. Plus she looks like Madonna with all the filler vacuumed out of her. Oh, and Industrie has a story on Glen O'Brien.
Does anyone even need to know one thing about Mr O'Brien?
As for Love, the less said the better. A quick flip shows that the magazine has no direction whatsoever. Since I'm way behind in my reading, I'll struggle with Love no longer - into the bin it goes! Ms Mcmenamy's 1992 Vogue Italia cover (Steven Meisel) directly 'inspired' the 2010 Vogue Paris cover.

Year of the Dragon: Ariane Koizumi

This is Ariane Koizumi, in a 1989 photo by Peter Lindbergh.
Ms Koizumi, a native New Yorker of Dutch and Japanese parentage, was discovered by Steven Meisel (Meisel's picture of her below) and was a supermodel, before the term was coined, and joined the long list of models who never quite made a successful transition to films. She starred in one movie, Year of the Dragon, which came out in 1985, at the height of her fame as a model. Directed by Michael Cimino, starring Mickey Rourke and John Lone, the Chinese Mafia film didn't exactly break racial stereotypes. The screenplay was written by Cimino and Oliver Stone. In the movie Ms Ariane played a Chinese-American television reporter, Tracy Tzu.
There was Sayoko, Tina Chow and then Ariane.
Ms Koizumi made Jenny Shimizu possible.

Super Nude

Our very own Singaporean photographer Leslie Kee is holding a 'solo exhibition' (couldn't resist that) and starting the dragon year with a bang (oh dear). The Super Nude Series Photo Exhibition is on until the 28th of January, at the Hiromi Yoshii Gallery in Ropongi. The exhibition sees Kee's progress into his metier: a series of limited edition (1,000) publications called Super. This particular one celebrates model (and erstwhile Abercrombie Singapore topless greeter - see super below) Takuya Nakamura. Only in Japan, I'm telling you. The unpretentious pictures get more exciting after this and enquiring minds can see the range at http://thinkcount.blogspot.com/ an excellent blog by Max (I'm sorry to be so prim but there you go), where I first came across this juicy bit. No more of that fashion rubbish, thank god!There are others in this hopefully on-going series. Skye Tan, are you taking notes? Mr Nakamura was right here in Orchard Road!

Jon Jon Linda Turlington

And let me tell you this: Jon Jon is Linda and Christy in drag. There was always something completely asexual about Jon Jon's beauty for me - but you see, it was the same sort of androgyny as Linda's and Christy's beauty. Jon Jon is the final flower of Peter Lindbergh's vision of beauty from the 1990s. We love you Mr Lindbergh! How I miss your early, early days at Vogue Italia.Linda!Christy!