Luxury might still be the keyword at Lanvin, but the Autumn/Winter 2009-10 menswear collection looked at a relaxed sort of luxury. Coats, suits, cardigans and trousers were all characterised by soft silhouettes and a dark palette of black, grey, brown and a very beautiful burgundy shade. Silky scarves and woollen hats worn slightly tilted on the left or the right completed this luxuriously sensual look.
Masatomo’s collection worried me a bit. Rynshu Hashimoto is well known for his use of minimum details and passion for the dark colours inspired by tenmoku pottery, two features that were perfectly embodied by most of the outfits in this collection, such as dark grey jackets and relaxed pants with hundreds of asymmetrical pleats.
Yet Masatomo is also known for his use of unusual materials, for mixing extremes and for launching unlikely trends. In a previous collection he employed a lot of pink, a colour that was later on adopted by many other designers. In this collection he used quite a lot of animal prints, mixing leopard and tiger prints in various metallic shades, and in different sizes, creating somehow excessive contrasts. I honestly fear this flamboyant excess by Masatomo might become a trend, but deep down I hope it will be popular only in the most rock'n'rollish environments.
Kris Van Assche's menswear collection for Dior Homme seemed to be based on subtle geometries. Asymmetrical lapels were used on trench coats, triangular cut outs were used as decorative motifs on jackets and waistcoats and voluminous high cowl-necks gave an architectural touch to tops and shirts. Clever contrasts were created with outfits that featured drop-crotch pants and the perfectly-cut skinny suits.
Trench coats, shirts and jackets were rain-speckled at Maison Martin Margiela and among the evening wear there were ironic post-party wine stained garments. There were very few really striking pieces, though, such as jackets with multi-layered collars.
Walter Van Beirendonck reconfirmed himself as the king of bold colours and cartoon-like graphics.
T-shirts and jumpers with cut outs that formed the distorted and almost monster-looking faces of Columbian idols and Inca masks were the most original garments; 
coats with wing-like lapels that almost covered the face of the models were the most interesting pieces of outerwear, while beige or grey suits with subtle piping that looked like the "ribs" of Schiaparelli’s skeleton dresses (a detail that Van Beirendonck has by now made his own) were the most wearable.
While Van Beirendonck proved a designer can still live and create in financially critical times, while being original and avant-garde, Romain Kremer forgot to balance wearability with conceptualism. Kremer’s perfectly wearable coats and jackets with inserts in see-through plastic were somehow outshadowed by bizarre and at times grotesque showpieces that looked like revised costumes for Oskar Schlemmer’s Treppenwitz pantomime.
Gareth Pugh’s first menswear collection proved instead that a proper balance between excess and wearability can still be reached. Pugh’s collection featured all his trademark designs – metallic shades, goat hair jackets, skinny suits featuring sharp shoulders, trench coats and jumpers with nails jutting out and diamond quilted coats and jackets ideal for gothic harlequins – yet, since winning the ANDAM prize, the quality of the young designer's creations has dramatically changed for the better.
PVC was still used but together with other materials, such as leather, wool and fur, while Stephen Jones’ gothic headdresses completed the outfits. Though this is not a collection for every man and definitely not for men who don’t share with Pugh his "dark knight" sensibility, it will be interesting to see how these garments will be worn once they get off the catwalk and onto the streets.
There are rumours now that the LVMH empire might be after Pugh, but for the time being there’s only one thing for sure: the young designer has managed to bring together the British and French fashion media winning their approval and getting the only genuinely raving reviews of the A/W 09-10 menswear season.
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