MAN fuk@lfw s/s 07

MAN is London Fashion Week's menswear showcase which has for its three season duration been sponsored by Topman. The upper level of a car park on Brewer Street in the heart of Soho was a great choice of venue and the organisers had set up a formidable lighting rig.

At the end of the carpark catwalk there was a huge cube each side revealing a backdrop for three designers featured and Topman design. MAN is run by a panel of industry professionals who decide which designers get the chance to show.

First off, against a pure white cube background, came Carola Euler's LFW debut, 'Without A Ride'. This is pure and simple menswear - oversized cotton T-shirts, worn with rolled-up dark denim jeans which bagged at the bottom, worn with flip flops, double belted beige macs and white summer coats, a soft grey jumper worn with T-shirt underneath and an untied tie necklace style. A series of jeans and trousers with kinky ruched details at the ankle impressed us - really wearable, clever shape. The whole look was a reinterpretaion of preppy principles with exaggerated T-shirts and tennis shorts.

Last season, London-based designer Carri Mundane's (sic) Cassette Playa showed a pyschedelic film as part of MAN. Now her tutti-frutti blend of boywear gets a full showing. Cassette Playa's models gave good London strut and proper attitude, pefectly pulling off the label's unique blend of cartoon and computer references in a blinding colour palette. Mundane told us afterwards that the colours were inspired by a packet of Wotsits and the whole collection is about a boy whose spent so long playing computer games, he's lost all grip on reality and gone virtual. The press release - which read like a computer game instructions, says "It's like wearing liquid pixels". Track suits, baggy tops with baggy shorts, blouson jackets emblazoned with Aztec and African art symbols, all looked straight out of Hackney by way of Jupiter

In February, we had the pleasure of meeting up with one of the most accomplished homegrown menswear talents to emerge for some time, Deryck Walker. Before his LFW debut at February's MAN, Walker had already sold his first collection to Dover Street Market. His spring/summer follow up didn't disappoint us. 'Oracle' has few colours - black, white, navy dominate - and the feel is very UK man (Walker hails from Glasgow) with a focus on shirting, trousers and a variety of jackets.

Walker's way is to intrigue us with unexpected details on backs as well as fronts. The collection features white shirts with black criss-cross details on the back, navy lightweight suits with slightly puffed-out backs and ultra fitted sleeves - drop dead effective. Print is limited to a few pieces including a commanding belt-waisted coat which looked like Dercyk had drawn horses all over. There are perspex panels on shirts and jackets and see-through shirts and pleated tennis shorts/culottes which you'd swear were skirts. The styling was strong but not silly - blingy belts, luminous pieces of tape on legs and arms (continuing the bicycle theme played with last season perhaps) as well as a little silver headwear, all helped to get the quirky qualities across.

Lastly, show sponsors Topman showed a collection designed by the in-house Topman Design team. After last season's orgy of skinny trousers, TM Design has experimented with new trouser shapes. Baggy at the top, narrow at the botton with front pleats - we swear we saw Pegs! There are also lots of casual cotton straight legged trousers which were shown with the legs rolled up and matching lighweight jackets and long shorts. Tyvek appears in crumply T-shirts and there are soft jersey suits and shiny grey Tonic-style trousers. The basic palette of navy, white, black and grey is punctuated with soft pink criss-cross prints on jackets and shirts and a multi-coloured check neon sleevless hooded jacket. TM Design offers mini-trench coats for breezier days and some cool sporty bags too.

Words: Marian Buckley
Photos: David Jones

www.dercykwalker.co.uk
www.cassetteplaya.com
www.myspace.com/cassetteplaya