Spring-Summer 23 Style Focus: The new rusticity The 12 April 2022 - Fabrics - Leather

Tailored looks for men are rooted in nature, to rethink relaxed yet elegant looks. Women’s suits borrow from workwear’s style codes, and opt for personalisation.  Jacket shapes keep it simple, in a workwear vein, with square but not exaggerated shoulders. Natural fibres – especially cotton and linen – are freely mixed, injecting an overall feel of freshness, accented by airy and acidic colourways.

Suits are evocative of fine household linens, with a clean drape that moves with the body, and are designed to last, growing softer and suppler over time. Jackets and pants feature decorative contrasting patches scattered randomly over each garment. Conceived to serve as reinforcing inserts, patches also promote a mended spirit, and more long-lasting garments.

Without ever veering into nostalgia, fabrics have an old-time country charm, from dry woollens with pleasing handles, to plaited raffia with a straw or twine look. Occasionally motifs with a grandmotherly feel – tea towel checks or ticking stripes -soothingly enliven ensembles. For pants, linen is controlled but assertive, perfect for elegant chinos or more sophisticated slim-fit trousers.  Windowpane and tartan checks look washed-out by the sun, and point to luminous citywear.

The natural direction in tailoring is offset by leather accessories with graphic lines. Square totes, worked in gummy leathers in neutral colourways, feature enlarged outside pocket details enhanced with wet-look leathers.

To complete the look, think of square-toed moccasins, decorated with lacquered and colourful reptile-like leathers, for a final touch of chic.

In this less formal approach to suits, knit tops claim their rightful place. Knits come alive in fitted polo shirts, crafted in colourful yarns. T-shirts with ultra-simple lines, in smooth high-end jerseys, are made with hemp or pure organic linen. In shirts, subtly bleached fabrics are enhanced by a touch of lyocell, lending a suppleness to handles marked by a distinctly plant-fibre look and feel. Woven stripes show their colours and are clearly one of the season’s must-have motifs. The graphic and bucolic contrast is softened by alternating pastel and supercharged tones to create upbeat colour combinations.

A look graphically punctuated by more or less thick stripes, expressed in shapes with exaggerated volumes.

Firmly entrenched in SS 23 citywear collections, linen embraces suppler, more sensual handles, for soft, deconstructed jackets. Sometimes linens are embellished with a subtle shine and light metallic reflections. To help fashion floaty, closer-to-the-body dresses and ensembles that trace the body’s movements, delicately woven materials are enhanced with stretch. Slacks can be loose, with pleat-fronts or straight cuts, and can be worn under an asymmetrical skirt. Pants made in dense, heavy blends can also feature draped details.

This season, tweeds are brightened up, with their rustic aspect taking on a punchy multicolour look thanks to fluorescent cut-yarns, enlarged motifs and an injection of colourful materials. These give a new twist to boxy suits and shortened skirts with a deceptively classic look. In accessories, Mary Janes and ladylike patent-leather purses with a softly retro touch, in sunny, high-voltage colours, add a zesty note to the silhouette.

This season, stripes are used in both men’s and women’s shirts, energising them with a bright bayadere look and vibrant, explosive harmonies. When cut closer to the body and given a feminine touch with frills and ruffles, shirts take on a less formal lightness, thanks to semi-plains with an almost bridal-trousseau effect. These make a stylish addition to ceremony wear. Precious and finely worked cottony voiles, evoking the luxurious linens of yesteryear, breathe freshness into collections. Shirts in strikingly pure optical whites are embellished on the surface with tiny rippling waves and enhanced by tone-on-tone imitation stripes or delicate, appliqué flowers. An interplay of openwork and transparency sensually reveals the body thanks to ultra-light weights, and fabrics with inserted gauze and hemstitching.