Friday 17 June 2011

Star Turn - G-Star's A/W collection hits its stride



Casual/smart dressing is the biggest trend from the A/W Milan catwalks according to Dolce & Gabbana, Moschino and Gucci. Combining jeans and tailored jacket is a cinch though compared to getting your footwear right for this in-between look.

The above might just might be the solution: G-Star’s Hybrid Specialists. These babies combine a tough leather upper with a pale sportswear sole. Hitting the street to walk to work has never been more comfortable, or on the money, style wise.


G-Star Hybrid Specialists £145

Thursday 10 March 2011

Sisleyum, Sisley's first men's anti-aging skincare


Benjamin Button can defy the fundamental laws of the universe and grow younger while I, and the rest of humankind, like speeding bullets, head towards epidermal entropy. How I respond to this truth is dictated by being male. A fact both cultural and biological. A well-matured man, like a bottle of vintage Port is often savored. Older women - perversely - are dismissed like corked plonk. It's the age-old double standard as unrelenting as time itself.

It also explains why I don't want to speed up or in any way ignore the fact my skin is wrinkling, sagging and will eventually resemble a mud pie. My face needs all the help it can get. Luckily, it might not be heading geriatric intensive care quite so soon. It's been given another throw of the dice of youth. For the past two months my face has been lapping up Sisleyum, the new men's skincare from French skincare power house, Sisley.

The smart thing about Sisleyum is that it's a straight-forward, twice daily application after cleansing. The other smart thing about it, is that once applied, it's a speeded up multitasker. Take hydration. Extract of wild pansy helps Aquaprin-3 develop which encourages water to circulate around the skin, making it appear smoother. It also puts the discomfort of razor burn behind you. White horehound and shea butter repair and sooth grazed your post-shaved skin alongside allantoin which is used to treat cuts. Tired looking skin? Olivine stimulated skin cells natural defenses and ant-free radicals malachite and smithsonite keep the troubler makers at bay. And fine lines and wrinkles flatten out from collagen producing extracts of alegkengi calyx and padina pavonica. While Vitamin A helps regulate the growth of new skin cells. There are more ingredients in Sisleyum than a book of recipes and they all work. I know. I look in the mirror. Sisleyum comes in two versions - a gel and a cream depending on your skin's oiliness and the time of year. It costs £150. I'm not sure why it's called Sisleyum. I might rename it Benjamin Button Butter.

Find Sisleyum in Harrods, Selfridges and House of Fraser stores from 15th March 2011

Thursday 13 January 2011

The Quiet Storm - Roland Mouret's low-key menswear revolution




Roland Mouret’s first menswear collection is a smart take on subtle dressing. Men start forming an orderly queue now for these are highly covetable clothes.


‘It’s more of a wardrobe than a collection. Men over thirty like to dress quietly rather than to shout about the clothes that they’re wearing,’ says Roland Mouret about his new menswear label, Mr..

These are perhaps surprisingly low-key words from a man who over the past 15 years has been dressing fashion’s heavy-hitters such as Demi Moore and Carla Bruni. These women pull on his dresses for head-turning body-con sexiness. Whatever else Mouret’s womenswear might be, it’s rarely quiet.

‘It’s a mistake for a mature guy to try and look too trendy,’ he says, as if finding a wholly new aesthetic by designing for men. ‘It doesn’t work. He needs to keep things classic, tailored with just a little edge. Not in your face’.

This is Mouret’s personal philosophy of masculine dressing that also describes his own below-the-radar style. Is he more at ease with well- cut jeans and a tailored jacket than a super-slick, skinny suit? ‘That’s right, I am my own guinea-pig with this collection. Would I wear it? is a question I kept asking myself.’ He also tapped his female design team enquiring of them what they look for in a well-dressed man.

‘They told me the butt is really important which is why I’ve created a square shape with a horizontal pleat at the back of my jeans,’ he says, ‘this really flatters you from behind’. And hands up who doesn’t want his rear to look good in jeans? His are made from robust Japanese denim which with their subtle detailing and cut does indeed flatter even the most broad-in the-beam man.

Mouret’s care with fabrics runs throughout the line. Cashmere for the knitwear is from Italy, cotton poplin for the shirts is Swiss and the tweed for coats and suits is from England. There’s even a remarkably soft scarf made – strangely - from a form of milk protein. Mouret’s ideal man may leave the peacock dressing to his wife, but he obviously doesn’t deny himself the luxury of fine textures and fabrics.

Touching these tactile materials pleasurable enough, but it’s when you pull on the suiting in particular that Mouret’s startling talent for cutting becomes clear. These are skills he’s obviously honed from designing his intricate women’s line.

A pale grey wool suit hangs from broad, masculine shoulders. Assets I formerly didn’t know I possessed. ‘Everything starts with the shoulder,’ say Mouret reading the pleasant surprise on my face, ‘If you get the shoulder right, everything else falls into place.’ I look as if I’ve been intensely training my upper body in the gym for the past month.

And, as if understanding his new customer better than that customer knows himself, these suits are cut from one of two blocks – narrow or classic. This nods to the current trend for slimmer fitting suits while acknowledging the reality of the stockier body men acquire as they age. Mouret himself wears the regular cut suit.

Also in keeping with this quieter voice, Mouret showed his first men’s collection in Paris as a presentation rather than on a bells and whistles catwalk. ‘I wanted the press and buyers to see the construction, to feel the fabrics to see the details,’ he says patently excited about the feedback he has already received.

‘By getting up close you can see this small fold at the back of the shirt or the drape on the epaulettes, it’s a drape not cut. These small details are so important.’ But especially to men it would seem.

Mr. is available from Harrods, Selfridges and Browns. Suits start from £1400