King George made it comfortable, taking away the stiffness. Today, between materials and weights, many brands follow it
The old fashion dictionaries, a lighthouse in the ocean of information related to the world of fashion, should all be updated with the entries “Blazer” and “Jacket” because both the first, although it is still one of the cornerstones of male elegance, and the second, in all its versions, have evolved and transformed. Padding, horsehair and shoulder pads, in addition to first choice fabrics, are certainly still the protagonists in the panorama of men’s tailoring (especially in “made to measure”), but for some time now there has been an air of practicality and lightness even in the men’s wardrobe, starting from the jacket, which today is increasingly unstructured, deconstructed, slippery. It has become almost an oxymoron of style, embodying the informal and the formal. We’ve also seen a lot of them on the men’s catwalks this season.
Goodbye padding
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Goodbye padding From Zegna, for example, a brand also known for its formalwear, the artistic director Alessandro Sartori continues along the path of very sophisticated but discreet luxury. On its catwalk, exceptionally set up in Dubai this year and characterized by mounds of grass to recall the Australian sheep farms from which their fine yarns derive, they paraded comfortable volumes and fluid jackets with unpadded shoulders, as if to emphasize a new masculine style. On the Giorgio Armani catwalk, jackets of different shapes, lengths and fabrics were presented, but they shared the lack – never accidental – of structure, compensated by an impeccable design and shoulder cuts, which slide gently to wrap the body without constraints, thanks also to the always comfortable volumes. On the other hand, it’s history: King George made the jacket the fulcrum of his work, the cornerstone of his natural and casual elegance: “The jacket was the starting point for what I did later”, he said in an interview. “It’s the topic I’ve returned to tirelessly, evolving without limit. There isn’t a collection of mine without a new version of the jacket.” When Armani presented his first men’s and women’s collections, he made them the instrument of his style and costume journey. Inspired by his sister Rosanna who wore men’s jackets, he also built women’s ones based on the men’s model, giving life to the Power Suit, the suit that later brought him success.
light and authoritative
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Even though it became a tool to represent one’s power, Armani removed the rigidity of the jacket, both the female and the male one, by removing the padding from the linings, changing the arrangement of the buttons and also modifying their proportions. This process transformed a rigid garment into a comfortable and light garment, but always an expression of a certain tone and a new, less rigid authority. This is why Giorgio Armani has been defined as the first post-modern designer: with the jacket he achieved what others did with architecture. And with his vision he also anticipated the contemporary needs of women and men who today increasingly prefer a style of jacket that is not too rigid to move with greater freedom.
the change in trend
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Stylists aside, the entire world of fashion has changed tastes and orientations. Young people, more open to new things, also contributed to the evolutionary path of this garment, but their limited purchasing power meant that, initially, only less valuable and cheaper fabrics were used for these types of jackets. Today the trend has changed and even in the highest profile collections, as in the cases of LBM 1911 and Manuel Ritz, you can find more and more unstructured and unlined models in fine cashmere or carded Merino wool. In the meantime, we look ahead: new projects are born in balance between tradition and avant-garde such as Zero Gravity by Tombolini, a tale of tailoring and research into materials and manufacturing techniques, as well as the fruit of an Italian know-how that has been passed down for three generations and which embodies the motto of its founder, Eugenio Tombolini: “The future has ancient roots”. The Gold suit of this special edition is among the lightest in the world because it is made of cashmere and silk.
and there is also no ironing
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Pal Zileri, for his part, created the Active line in technical stretch fabric, a passepartout and dedicated to globetrotters. It’s called new formal active-wear which in some cases, as for the Traiano Milano brand, can go in the washing machine and doesn’t need to be ironed. Even “No iron” or “No Iron”, words that can be read on the labels of some Special Collections of Iuman Intimissimi Uomo (one of the brands of the Oniverse Group) or Outfit Italy thus enter the vocabulary of male elegance and the list of words of the moment, together with freedom, lightness and comfort.
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