Tag Archives: ludovic de saint sernin

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The 10 Best Menswear Looks from F/W 19

Featuring leather pants, loose romantic shirts, and a major suit comeback, we’ve compiled some of the highlights of the F/W ’19 men’s season.

 

tom ford fall 2019 rtw
Image: Alessandro Lucioni.

Tom Ford’s Leather Suit

The American designer always delivers impeccable tailoring, but this leather suit is a standout. Paired with a simple black turtleneck and large aviator glasses, it was a fresh and sleek take on the polished menswear that Ford does so well. Similar suits were also shown by Alyx and Berluti, proving that 2019  is going to be a big year for men’s leather.

 

loewe fall 2019 menswear
Image: Filippo Fior.

Loewe’s Looong Sleeves

Showing for the first time in Paris, Loewe (the Spanish label headed by J.W. Anderson) presented a series of knits with dramatically exaggerated sleeves. While oversized tops have become a staple for a few seasons now, it was nice to see a silhouette that focused on length rather that puffiness.

 

ludovic de saint sernin fall 2019

Ludovic de Saint Sernin’s Femme Top

The French designer has amassed a devout Instagram following in the past year thanks to his flashy and delicate take on menswear (as well as his sensual campaigns starring IG’s finest). This slinky and shimmering halter was a season highlight that would fulfill any music video fantasy.

 

palomo spainn fall 2019
Image: Alessandro Lucioni.

Palomo Spain’s Glam Rock Moment

Moving away from athleisure and streetwear, this season was a welcome return to the suit. Palomo Spain, the young Spanish fashion collective, known for its theatrical pieces showed this rhinestone suit that is just waiting to make its on-stage debut. Looking at you, Harry Styles.

 

thom browne 2019
Image: Alessandro Lucioni.

Thom Browne’s Cinched Waist

What’s great about Thom Browne is that he can do both super utilitarian and uniform tailoring and absurd large-scale runway shows. This elongated printed suit dress with fur cuffs and a cinched waist was a glimpse at the intersection of both these strengths.

 

louis vuitton fall 2019
Image: Alessandro Lucioni.

Louis Vuitton’s Utility Vest

It seems only fitting that Louis Vuitton, which helped spearhead the great fanny pack trend with its viral Supreme collab back in 2017, lets us know that it’s moved on to utility vests as the next it-accessory. Right there with you, LV.

 

valentino fall 2019
Image: Filippo Fior.

Valentino’s Printed Overcoat

Retro menswear cues dominated this season, but this brown printed overcoat from Valentino showed us that simple things can elevate the staple pieces to a surreal place.

 

ann demeulemeester fall 2019
Image: Alessandro Lucioni.

Ann Demeulemeester’s Puffy Shirt

The Belgian designer presented an elegant range of oversized men’s blouses that would be fit on both a pirate and a romance novel cover. Billowy and rebellious, the shirts were a welcome contrast to the structured silhouettes that were frequently shown.

 

etudes fall 2019
Image: Filippo Fior.

Études’ Keith Haring Tribute

Haring’s work remains an endless source of retro-inspiration for fashion and the design world at large, but this simple yet bold jumpsuit from the French design collective was a straightforward yet refreshing way to incorporate the artist’s iconic illustrations.

 

versace fall 2019
Image: Alessandro Lucioni.

Versace’s Feather-Lined Suit

Leave it to Versace to add some campiness to the suit-overload that was made apparent this season, offering a reminder that menswear can and should be fun.

 

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Lazoschmidl’s Latest Zine is Wonderfully Camp

“The biggest package ever!”

It’s within this devilish double entendre that Swedish fashion house Lazoschmidl announced the zine that would accompany “Playdate,” their equally-as-devilish Spring 2019 collection that included “wet dream” inscriptions in rhinestone and more than one crocheted crotch. It was just the latest erotic idea to flow from the minds of designers Josef Lazo and Andreas Schmidl and into their design studio—the latest treat for enraptured fans of the brand whose first solo runway show was a mere two years ago this month.

Firmly established amongst the ranks of rising queer fashion designers like Charles Jeffrey Loverboy, Palomo Spain, and Ludovic de Saint Sernin, the Swedes have become known on and off the runway for their queer, campy excess. Alongside each collection, Lazo and Schmidl have released one-off zines called Unpublished Material. Within the glossy pages, they’ve paid homage to everything from NSYNC to sex tourism. For their latest iteration, the duo invited six creatives to interpret the themes of the Spring ’19 collection for, yes, the biggest package ever.

 

doug 02Image: Doug Inglish.

 

While past issues have ranged from 30-50 pages of material shot by a single photographer, Unpublished Material #8 clocked in at a meaty 84 pages thanks to an eclectic mix of work from Doug Inglish, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Bruce LaBruce, Jasmin Storch, Alexandre Chagnon, and Max Marsden. The result—an erotic, romantic patchwork of drawings, texts, and images—paints a worthy portrait of Lazoschmidl’s world while preserving the counterculture spirit that drew many of the contributors to the medium during their youth.

For photographer Doug Inglish, it may have been the “confident, sexy, and fetishistic” Spring ’19 collection that sparked his interest, but it was the history of radical zine-making that sealed the deal. Kicking off the zine, his portraits of queer model Benjamin Selleck outfitted in the brand’s signature underwear and dressed up in boots and a sailor cap effectively recreated the beefcake aesthetic of yesteryear—serving as an ode to Inglish’s closeted adolescent exploration of Colt Studios’ leather calendars and vintage physique magazines. “They were the part of me that no one knew about and they were beautiful. I was obsessed,” he recalled of these early zines. More than just a tool to hone his creative style, they taught him important lessons about self-empowerment and societal critique.

 

doug 01Image: Doug Inglish.

 

It was also within this art form that fellow photographer Paul Mpagi Sepuya found inspiration long before he contributed to Lazoschmidl’s fanzine. His self-published SHOOT series from 2005 to 2008 was one of the first projects he released and allowed him to ingrain himself within the queer publishing culture of that time. “The way we make opportunities to collaborate, cross-pollinate and form friendships is a beautiful thing,” he said of the format. For Unpublished Material #8, Sepuya’s series of intimate self-portraits in the brand’s peach emoji-inspired briefs brought a raw eroticism to the pages—a perhaps unintentional antidote to the white gaze that lurks behind many images of black queer men. For Sepuya, the topic of photographic gaze is one he’s explored throughout his work and, when the topic is broached while discussing his contribution to the zine, led to an effectively pragmatic explanation that “a black gaze has the freedom to fetishize whatever enters into its field of vision.”

As matter-of-fact as the photographer’s answer is, it also serves to sum up what Lazoschmidl tapped into with Unpublished Material #8. By straying from a unified, singular vision and putting their campy, queer ethos into the hands of six creatives, the zine became a physical testament to Lazoschmidl’s universal acclaim and with it, as Inglish so aptly explained, it opened the door to a stronger, sexier future:

“One can be fragile, effeminate, strong, and sexy all at once. We do not need to be tough to be sexy and vice versa, we are free to have it all—as it should have always been.”