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

1 comment:

  1. This is really looking dazzling. I think this will being style icon and will make hottest of the town.
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    ReplyDelete