In my recent roundup from London's menswear collections I mentioned denim was a key theme, especially bleach-splattered, shredded and otherwise abused variations on the material, as well as the emergence of a boxier, oversized shape for the denim jacket. But there is another story to be told about denim and it concerns the cut of your jeans or, more precisely, the height of your waistband.
If at Saint Laurent in Paris, Hedi Slimane's high-waisted styles were typically slim-fitting and restrictive, those shown by London menswear designers Sibling a few weeks earlier had a bit more swing in the leg, reminiscent of a 1950s silhouette. In a collection inspired by West Side Story, with its pace-setting titles and choreographed gang warfare, Sibling's denims were true to the era that film portrayed, despite being paired with the designers' anything-but-conventional contemporary knitwear. When blue denim became part of youth culture for the first time the shape of jeans still retained an element of their workwear origins as well as demonstrating the relative modesty of the times.
There's something relentlessly optimistic and summery about 1950s-inspired styles. I can see the looser, high-waisted jeans shape, as demonstrated by Sibling, worn with a simple T-shirt and canvas pumps, being a great option for next summer.
I won't pronounce this as the end of skinny jeans for men, though it does offer an alternative to the slimmer, on-the-hip cuts popular for the last decade. Out of the spotlight for a while, perhaps due to a shift in fashion interest in all things "sartorial", Selfridges' new denim studio and APC's relocation of their E2 store to within inches of Shoreditch House's main entrance, are evidence that selling jeans will never be entirely out of focus when it comes to menswear.
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