Style round up: London Fashion Week Men's

Wearability and everyday style were the orders of the day on the catwalk this year

In times when, it's been said, we have too many experts, perhaps the age of the fashion designer is over. Hail, instead, the self-appointed stylist who, presumably, knows a fashion designer to help with the difficult cutting and making bit. Certainly, for the 11th bi annual London Fashion Week Men's collections (for autumn/winter 2018), The Independent had rapper Tinie Tempah's What We Wear line down as giving "a whole new form" to, of all things, the tracksuit. It's further indication perhaps of our general descent into, above all clothing qualities, comfort.

Christopher Raeburn Fall Winter 2018London Fashion Week MenCopyright Catwalking.com'One Time Only' PublicationEditorial Use Only

(Image credit: Catwalking.com)

It's a theme that is growing in menswear from season to season, but among the best purveyors of this were counted Christopher Raeburn, Lou Dalton – noted especially for her "fantastic knitwear in zinging colours," said the paper – and Oliver Spencer. Culture site theupcoming.co.uk described Spencer's urban vibe as offering "the perfect winter aesthetic", especially for its seductive use of rich velvets.

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Chalayan Fall Winter 2018London Fashion Week MenCopyright Catwalking.com'One Time Only' PublicationEditorial Use Only

(Image credit: Catwalking.com)

Demand for the same ethos of wearability was noted by The Business of Fashion too, which championed the designers who managed to walk the tightrope of being "both creative and sellable – without selling out". Hussein Chalayan, for example, offered "brilliantly made clothes with a strong story behind them", while Xander Zhou "shined with his artful and witty cross-pollination of western and eastern tropes". Of course, in the end a lack of adventurousness in menswear design leads you to hardy staples such as those presented by Kent & Curwen, now majority-owned by David Beckham. He's upped its ante. But he also describes it as "multi generational – I can go into the store and find something great and my 15-year-old kid can [too]," he has said.

LONDON, ENGLAND - JANUARY 07:Richard Biedul, wearing Kent & Curwen attends the 'The Boxer, The Artist & The Musician' a collaborative exhibition with photographer and filmmaker Perry Ogden fo

(Image credit: 2018 Darren Gerrish)

Where, one might ask, is the spirit of rebellion – the one that wouldn't have a 15 year old seen dead in a shop that also catered to a 42 year old, let alone his dad? The answer, The Guardian suggested, was in the Man showcase, this time focused on young designers Art School, Rottingdean Bazaar and Stefan Cooke. Against the former two, Cooke, the paper noted, "felt positively conventional, despite male models dressed in skintight python-printed jeans, carrying handbags". The revolution, it seems, will not be sanitised. Not yet, anyway.

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