If you weren’t awake yet, you are now. This morning, menswear designer Rory Parnell Mooney christened a new season of London shows with leopard print corsets, leather chaps and semi-sheer going out tops with scooped necklines. “Is it too early for python pants?” the designer joked on Instagram. Since returning to his namesake label in 2019 after a two-year pause, Mooney has worked in juxtapositions – mixing couture elements with everyday staples, and generally uniting things that are not normally seen together.
Autumn/winter 2021 sees Mooney pick up where last season left off. To begin with, he pondered how he could bring “the sexy and the chaste together” in a singular look. “I want people to feel good when they wear the clothes,” he says. “I want someone to try things on and feel a bit sexier.” This confidence is rooted in Mooney himself, who fit each look on his own body.
The collection is an amalgamation of everything Mooney has been consuming over the past few months, particularly the films Beau Travail, Wild At Heart and Working Girl. Each film is defined by power and hyper-masculinity – two themes Mooney cleverly toys with through a hedonistic mix of office attire with club-ready garb.
“I was thinking a lot about spaces that we don’t have access to,” says Mooney. “The idea of getting dressed to go somewhere and designing with how these spaces will look in the future in mind.” Whether it’s parachute cargo trousers, wipe-clean, wrap-around jackets or Mooney’s signature eyelet acid-washed jeans – this is the sort of clobber you want to be seen in, whether that’s stood at the photocopier or in a club’s smoking area. “Seeing what other people are wearing provides this human connection to clothing,” says the designer. [It] gives them a purpose almost, a reason to exist.”
Photography courtesy of Parnell Mooney.
