Menswear is Changing, take it or leave it
- Quinj Catabui
- Sep 6, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 7, 2023
My top 3 Menswear looks this S/S 2023
With the Menswear fashion collections closing, it’s time for a massive eyeballing moment.
It’s still a surprise to me that menswear has truly gone from plain and boring to a more bogus and out-there-in-the-slaying kind of style. Though menswear isn’t new to change since the 1960s with androgyny chasing the runway in the fashion scene, the majority of menswear shows still have the traditional vibe and look. Suits, ties, trousers, and a lot of blacks and greys (though not all). But let’s face it, walking into a store passing the women’s sections ingeniously styled garments, it’s always a letdown at how the retail vibe and atmosphere would change walking through a store (I’m totally not abhorred at the men’s section oop).
Still, it’s a major Chalayan moment on how much menswear has changed in the fashion landscape – it’s not your typical traditional fashion anymore, and I am living for it.
Menswear fashion has grown a lot since 2010’s fashion. Many Western and Japanese fashion influences also, I believe, took part in the reformation of menswear. Especially with the Harajuku Street Style or infamous Japanese luxury brands like Commes des Garçon or Yohji Yamamoto hurrying to everyone’s doorstep. Or more cathartic gender bender Western fashion taking over globally.
I believe menswear has and is changing for the better. Especially with the new generation of retail or luxury fashion consumers following celebrities or influencers who mix and match and jump around between aesthetics.
In a more subjective view, I filtered through the Menswear 2023 collections looking for 3 main characteristics that entice me. Fluidity, artistic expression, and the habitual I-pick-you. Of course, as a minimal-ish, eclectic, androgynous fashion lover, this is completely biased.
Saint Laurent SPRING 2023 Menswear (Look 42)
It’s not a YSL look without remembering how designer Yves Saint Laurent wanted freedom in fashion. Nor is it not YSL without a little play between masculine and feminine. These certain house codes set by YSL are the definition of how much culture and thought of its origins are put down on the runway. Let’s remember the fact that YSL is also one of the spearheads of genderfluid fashion to modernization.
One of my favorite parts of the look is how subtle yet extremely noticeable the fluidity is. YSL pioneered classic timeless suits for both men and women, but with his vision intact, neutrality hits the base. When looking at this certain design, it makes me think this type of fashion has “always been there”. It’s quite comforting, to say the least. Anthony Vaccarello is known to be quite dramatic in his collections, and you can feel the cinematic intensity brewing just from the chosen music, he was able to signify his own artistic style into the YSL house codes quite stunningly might I add.
From top to bottom: Look 42 is styled with a beige trench coat that sits over the shoulders which gives it a soft silhouette; a two-halved black and white tiled YSL logoed frayed scarf, with an inner darker shade of beige, décolleté (seems like sheer) blouse with a lower V-neckline. And black loose trousers that looked like they flowed with each step the models walked on with heeled boots. A perfect play between distinguishable ends of the spectrum from a genderfluid view.
Rick Owens SPRING 2023 Menswear
Personally, I was never a fan of Rick Owens. His designs to me were, controversial, not easy to observe or look at from a normal person’s point of view. He moved with the same modern collection after collection having the same stomach and spine-shivering moments. Notably with his main aesthetic going grunge, gothic and dark or light humanoid alien. It’s not a surprise I was one of many who steered away from his designs. But it’s only after exploring his intellectual creative expression and how he put them into cohesive and consistent structured fashion – made I realize just how much I missed out.
Rick Owens Spring 2023 Menswear was, perspective-changing, in a way. Despite the dark and eerie choice of techno-beat music, it managed to put the designs into a narrow and understanding shape of Rick Owens's inspiration and main thought behind the looks. Going for an apocalyptic theme, he stuck to his house codes with the similar alien-like features of over-stretched (some facing upward) shoulders and loose pants that seem to flare at the bottom in the most modern aesthetic grungy way possible.
It’s not only the darkness and sign-of-the-times vibe the model(/s) imbue on the runway, but the stylistic choice also nuanced the collection’s overall theme. Look 4 has a particular post-apocalyptic sense with its neutral grey tone with over-sized shoulders formed straight out, and with a slightly darker colour for the blazer’s collar which has a design beneath that triangulates at the chest stretching to the arms’ seams and continuing a rectangular shape at the button panel. This is then wrapped by a thinly strapped safety buckle of a lighter grey hue at the waist, which stems out the rest of the blazer curving to the model’s sides, nuancing an enlongated fluid silhouette. The loosely fitted semi transparent flare pants designed similarly to cargo pants with the pockets sit beautifully on the model as it covers the Rick Owens boots.
Sinister, expressive, chic, but aluringly earthshaking.
Y/Project SPRING 2023 Menswear
There’s a Denim over denim moment in Y/Projects Spring 2023 Menswear Collection. And, genuinely, I can’t help but fall for the heavy-textile-turned-art piece on the grovel runway. It might be my eclectic fashion side talking, but as a Gen Z who's easily swayed byTikTok fashion trends, like the Y2K circling back into our Pinterst boards, Y/Projects Menswear collection is a favorable fruit cake for Gen Z’s palates.
With Gen Z’s doubtful but seemingly digestible taste, Y/Projects Glenn Martens coed collection steers the “want” Gen Z thirsts for. His designs were deconstructed, messy, abstract, experimental, some you won’t even be able to understand what’s going on. But that’s exactly why this collection is intriguing.
From the abstract use of manipulating denim as skirts or boots, or even the photo prints, there’s an interconnected sense to all his designs from look 1 to 62. Though, initially I wasn’t a big fan of the grovel, the potential models falling and the slow tempo of the music – it may have actually helped in digesting the looks.
Between the fabrics overlapping and deconstructed nature, and the choice of music, it was a playful combination of messy but balanced. My particular favorite is Look 16. Just denim all over.
Look 16 carries a black denim overcoat sitting on the right shoulder with its lapels rounding over the chest to continue around the back, where the rest of the coat and left sleeves rest. Topped with a poncho-like, frayed slanted top, with Y/Projects’ logo in patchwroked stressed denim. The lightly stonewashed jeans-turned-skirt embraces the Y2K moment but with a modern touch of Glenn Martens deconstruction and fray elements that are cut at the front and back. The skirt sits just right on the hips by a crunched-up belt with the buckle hanging loose. This is then styled with Y/Projects signature thigh high black denim stonedwashed heeled boots.
And for names sake, I also thoroughly enjoyed Look 28-30 with the photo prints burnt oranges and pinks. As well as the trench coat's made-up holes for a scarf.
Simply, a natural eyegasm.
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