It's no secret that I love patterns. Actually, "love" makes it seem like I have a healthy relationship with patterns. I don't. I cannot get enough of them. "Obsession"sums up how I feel about them much better. Lets start over.
It's no secret that I have an obsession with patterns. this whole color-blocking thing that's been going on is not so much my thing. Pattern blocking is much more my style. Patterns on patterns on patterns is how I like it. If your outfit doesn't worry someone with epilepsy I just don't want to have any part in it.
So I've been loving how, for the past couple seasons, menswear designers have been rolling out new takes on patterns. First it was florals and bright patterns for Spring 12, then they got darker and more geometric for Fall, and patterns have taken a new turn for Spring 13. Instead of small, repetitive patterns (florals, geometric prints, or otherwise) patterns shown in the Spring shows have been big and instead of just sort of happening over the whole piece or outfit, they are placed strategically and the pattern becomes the piece.
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| Gucci & Burberry Prorsum (All photos from Style.com) |
Gucci and Burberry Prorsum (probably my two favorite menswear designers) showed some of the best examples of this. The prints on the shirts (and jacket, in Burberry's case) are these big designs placed on the pieces so that the design itself is an integral part of the piece. I would feel bad layering something over these because you would lose part of the print. That's where these new designs are different from past prints - before, they were repetitive and all over the piece. Now the design is just on part of the piece.
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| Bottega Veneta & Etro |
Bottega Veneta does something similar with florals on blazers. Instead of just having a bright floral blazer, the floral is printed subtly on top of what looks like a even more subtle glen plaid. The floral is just on part of it though. For Bottega, just a couple flowers are necessary. Etro then has their trademark paisley just on the top half of the blazer and the bottom of the leg. The new repetitive patterns aren't repetitive at all - the happen just once and stay where they are.
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| Roberto Cavalli & Alexander McQueen |
Roberto Cavalli did the same thing, except with a speckled pattern on the top and bottom of the blazer. Again, the repetitive patterns happen only in one or two places instead of all over. The second jacket is another big pattern on the piece. Alexander McQueen brought it with the Spring collection, showing lots of amazing looks and suits. The first blazer is just a great print with a defined center on the button, making it look like an explosion from the middle of it, instead of patterns with no start or center previously shown. I'm beyond obsessed with the second blazer. Dragonflies were a motif throughout the collection and this blazer was my favorite use of them. They're focused on the lapels and seem to be flying all around the rest of the jacket. Just perfection.
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| Moschino & Salvatore Ferragamo |
Moschino showed both ways of using patterns - how it was done in FW and how they're being used in SS. Under the cardigan is a print that just repeats all over the shirt and, separately, the pants. Then on top is a cardigan with one big print coving the whole chest. This shows the difference in how the patterns are worn - with the repeating patterns you wear them to add some interest to an outfit with something that's not solid, then the big new prints are there to be there. You don't wear them under something else, the print exists as a whole, not as something to be covered. (Sidenote, this collection reminded me so much of D&G's FW11 collection. I'm still so upset over the loss of Dolce & Gabbana's diffusion line). Salvatore Ferragamo showed some more of the new patterns in different ways from the other designers. The cardigan looks almost like pattern-blocking as opposed to color-blocking. And the blazer is just a great print, and the painted-on look makes the outfit so much more than just a tri-color jacket.
