It's official. The Spring/Summer 2011 collections are here. Resort/Holiday will be hitting stores soon and showrooms are filling up with the new season. Of course we won't be able to populate our wardrobes with them for months, but we can salivate over them and pick our favorites now in magazine editorials and blogs.
Helmut Lang Mens is one of the first Spring/Summer 2011 collections I've been able to preview and though I've received lookbooks of the luxury brand in the past, this was my first visit to their showroom. The brand is well known for minimalist design and arthouse details and I was excited to see what was coming down the pipeline for this upcoming season. I will admit, I was expecting to be wowed. I will also admit, I was not disappointed.
The men's collection is produced in Japan under the lead of designer Naoki Takizawa, formerly of Issey Miyake Mens. The full range is offered in Japan and Europe but is edited down for the US market which, I assume, is because American men tend to be more fashionably tame compared with other regions. Whether that was the case or not, there were enough standout pieces and subtly cool design details that I wanted to look up the items that were held back.
There were only a few denim pieces within the collection as this was not Helmut Lang's dedicated denim line. Only one silhouette was used throughout which was a basic straight leg jean; a fit that tends to work well on most body types. Therefore, the focus was not so much on fit but on texture. With such a basic silhouette, Takizawa was given a lot of room to be creative with texture, while still maintaining the minimalist and urbane aesthetic of the brand. For example, one of the items that caught my attention was a jean made of a cotton/hemp blend. The weave was a crosshatched, slub yarn whose texture was so natty it was reminiscent of wool tweed. Slub yarns in denim are not new, but are often not done well. This will mark the first time I've seen this construction used to create a look that was both classic and progressive. Black jeans with matching jacket were coated, but instead of looking like leather or plastic, had a slightly gritty texture with subtle sheen that is sure to get more interesting as the wearer breaks them in.
To pair with these interesting denim pieces were a collection of knits that also used basic silhouettes beefed up by texture and unique design details. A t-shirt made with a tweed-like knit was loosely constructed and could easily transition into Fall/Winter as a short sleeved sweater. Another t-shirt looked conventional at the top, but when you looked at the bottom, had straps that hooked into jeans. A long-sleeved, button-up sweater had stirrups built into the end of the sleeves while a long-sleeved shirt had nautical stripes that bled into the white space and would have been awesome in Resort.
The Spring/Summer 2011 collection will hit stores between mid-January and February with prices ranging from $195 for a t-shirt to $345 for the cotton/hemp jeans. You can shop the men'scollection at Helmut Lang stores, Barney's, Ron Herman and Scoop.
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