Wanting what we don’t need (and what, in a biblical sense, isn’t ours) is at the heart of luxury consumption. And need, more than anything more evolved or cerebral, was the emotion stimulated by this season’s menswear shows in Milan. Does the world need a linen field jacket with Breton stripes or a navy terry cloth blazer with white piping or an evening-wear safari jacket worn with Gurkha trousers and a slightly ridiculous shawl-collar waistcoat? It does not.
But viewing this stuff at a Ralph Lauren Purple Label presentation in the designer’s elegant palazzo sparked in this viewer an irresistible fantasy of inhabiting an atmosphere in which Chris Pine wanders through a drawing room in Gatsby garb, and Colman Domingo is observed resting. an elbow, dressed in a navy blue double-breasted suit jacket, on a marble mantelpiece, and Usher strolls while wearing many shades of taupe, a loosely woven sweater casually tied over his shoulders.
This indeed happened. But while it wasn’t the real world in any sense, it was indicative of what fashion is for. That is, as no one has ever understood it better than Mr. Lauren, to take us out of our real circumstances.
“Dressing for me has always been an adventure,” Mr. Lauren said in press notes ahead of the show.
Name the person who, while trying on clothes in a store (remember those?), doesn’t temporarily lose his sanity and venture into an unlikely scenario. In one dream scene, you’re that colleague casually strolling into work and ruining the office competition by wearing, say, one of Silvia Venturini Fendi’s gloriously nothing Balmacaan jackets in muted madras fabric patterns.
Or are you that man in a beautifully designed trapeze jacket in the color of port wine from Sabato De Sarno at Gucci who coolly walks into Balthazar? (Is this the place to mention that, despite rumors of Mr. De Sarno’s impending departure from the label, he more than held his own? This against the provocative backdrop of his predecessor at Gucci, Alessandro Michele, who unexpectedly dropped his first collection as creative director of Valentino titled “Avant le Debut,” from over 100 resorts that looked so sloppy and granny and real-Gucci that some assholes called the collection Vucci.)
Or are you that person who styles your hair with black spikes and throws on a khaki JordanLuca flash coat to show Dimes Square stereotypes – in their Etsy-adjacent Bode or serious Evan Kinori workwear – how it’s really done?
Or, finally, are you that plus one at a Julia Fox dinner at Jean’s, wearing an oversized quilted JW Anderson bomber with a floating hem, bare legs except for a pair of lace-up boots? Kill the house, as the ballroom kids say.
Inappropriate emotions are the underbelly of fashion desire. The critic Anne Hollander long ago pointed out that we should dress naturally to cover our nakedness. There are also agendas. RuPaul said it another way: you’re born naked and the rest is drag. During my imaginary shopping trip through Milan’s collections, with the goal of being more imaginary than I really am, I was assisted by David Farber, men’s fashion director of T: The New York Times Style Magazine.
It was Mr. Farber who guided me through Matteo Tamburini’s confident menswear debut as creative director of Tod’s, choosing for me an elegant, all-purpose trench coat worn over a work shirt with pockets and Goldilocks-style white jeans. -perfect proportions: not too wide and not too skinny. Have them packed and sent.
“I am a pragmatist,” Mr Tamburini said. “I look for solutions.”
Brunello Cucinelli does that too. As it happens, the people he provides solutions for could buy and sell most of us a thousand times over. Objectively speaking, it doesn’t matter. In the same way that fashion insiders love the bland-looking designs of Phoebe Philo or that hedge fund types will pay a fortune for the Row’s anonymous yet perfectly judged, Zoran-inspired garments, Brunello Cucinelli isn’t just setting standards in the field of taste, but also in terms of taste. but consumption.
We’ve found that “quiet luxury” is about as subtle as a megaphone. Yet Mr. Cucinelli’s collection, like everything on display in Milan, made it clear that if you have “succession money,” you would do well to follow where he leads.
“I was reminded of ‘Miami Vice,’” Mr. Cucinelli said at its preview, held in the gilded salon of Napoleon’s former retreat, the Palazzo Serbelloni. What he meant was essentially that moment when linen suits in so-called tropical colors epitomized Medellín-era cool for the American consumer. Mr. Cucinelli offers his version of Giorgio Armani pastels apparently favored by Miami drug lords. That in itself went a long way toward keeping his presentation and his label strangely relevant to his owner-class clientele.
Mr. Cucinelli’s color palette was toned down 1,000 decibels from the bold hues of Don Johnson’s heyday. That is, he showed linen suits with wide lapels in double- and one-and-a-half-breasted styles, unlined and sloppy yet so delightfully seedy that you’d willingly go into credit card debt to own them. And isn’t that ultimately the sucker punch of luxury goods?
