For her first men’s catwalk show in Paris, Clare Waight Keller welcomed her select group of guests into Givenchy’s Haute Couture salon. The choice of setting wasn’t just a practical one – it was obviously informing the kind of clothes the designer decided to offer to her audience. This season, the Givenchy man is heading into the direction of his female counterpart – elegant, sleek and very much focused on the craft of making. With nods to cowboys of the Wild West and the immaculate style of the late Modern Maharaja of Indore, Waight Keller served her own interpretation of menswear in the form of couture-like garments.
Always the one to provide plenty of details within the somewhat classic silhouettes, the British designer focused mainly on the formal expression of her man, with a few drops of activewear here and there. 1970s-style suits that could have easily been borrowed from David Bowie’s Thin White Duke-era tour wardrobe ranged from the saturated colours of plum and tomato all the way to a feminine hue of duck egg. Studded, square-toed cowboy boots on their feet and latex mock-necks worn as undergarments – you could almost taste the kink of it all. Layered over the shirts and creating an extended trouser waist were the zip-up cumber-band-corset hybrids – a moment we’ll gladly embrace comes next season. Liberace-esque embroidered looks rounded off the collection, ensuring that the Givenchy man has his own moment to shine, quite literally.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans.
