Menswear Fall-Winter 2013-14 (Mens Fashion Week - London, Milan, Paris)

[brad-t]

Is it really any surprise that Zam comes to the defense of any designer who's accused of being derivative on SZ? lol

 

[wurm]

zam doesn't look that much like ccp to me. i don't even like it that much or own any of his clothes, so i have little interest in defending him.

 

[brad-t]

It doesn't really look like CCP, it looks like an amalgamation of a lot of others' ideas, CCP being just one piece in the pot

 

[snowmanxl]

i quite liked some of the pieces and fabrics. presentation/styling was nice too. i dont know much about ccp so ill leave it at that.

 

[dfagdfsh]

that zam collection looks like plokhov to me.. especially the almost baltic military vibe, and especially the long jackets/shirts with extended narrow vented backpieces.

 

[the shah]

that everyone sees something different in it shows it's not really copying any one thing. comparing it to ccp makes no sense if you've seen ccp in person vs zam (haven't seen this fw13 yet) aside from obvious superficials
it has a military vibe to it as does every season because he used to be in military design which influences his work
calling it derivative is almost redundant as men's fashion by its very nature is derivative and secondary to a much larger, more profitable, and more marketed women's fashion.
but in the end i don't care much you do what you like wear what you want believe what you will his stuff is not for me though i still appreciate what he does as an independent little segment of a niche market of a derivative industry

 

[LA Guy]



It doesn't really look like CCP, it looks like an amalgamation of a lot of others' ideas, CCP being just one piece in the pot

It's "best of Stylezeitgeist", is what it is. If there was an equivalent guy on Styleforum SWD, he'd start strong with a leather moto jacket, white tee, jeans, and white sneakers, follow up with a crispy button down plaid shirt with a blazer, flannels, and Alden-alikes, hit the accelerator with a soft knit and drapey jacket about which even jet would post "nice", paired with some loose, lux, trousers, and then finish up with a drapey black outfit in some wool/viscose material. Drapey white tee, of course.

The first four jackets look a lot like Julius, MA+, Rick Owens, CCP, in that order. There are other "influences", but those are the most obvious. People on Stylezeitgeist used to blast Odyn Vovk on a regular basis. I'm not sure why Zam would deserve any mercy.

that everyone sees something different in it shows it's not really copying any one thing. comparing it to ccp makes no sense if you've seen ccp in person vs zam (haven't seen this fw13 yet) aside from obvious superficials
it has a military vibe to it as does every season because he used to be in military design which influences his work
calling it derivative is almost redundant as men's fashion by its very nature is derivative and secondary to a much larger, more profitable, and more marketed women's fashion.
but in the end i don't care much you do what you like wear what you want believe what you will his stuff is not for me though i still appreciate what he does as an independent little segment of a niche market of a derivative industry

From everything I've heard, Zam is a good guy. I've never met the guy personally, but I'll take that at face value. That doesn't give him a by though. Saying that everyone sees something different, that calling is derivative is redundant because men's fashion is derivative, which is a convenient fiction here, that it makes no sense to compare it to CCP of you haven't seen CCP in person vs. Zam, are just specious, throwaway arguments to disguise the fact that there were very few original ideas here, to be as charitable about it as one can be.

And sure, menswear is mostly derivative, but that's definitely not true of all designers, and definitely not true of designers who started off in and/or concentrated on menswear, or at least, really paid attention to it - Yohji Yamamoto, Giorgio Armani, Gianfranco Ferre, Massimo Osti, Raf Simons, Hedi Slimane - just to name the obvious ones in the past few decades.

 

[the shah]

Nice try but none of what I said suggested it was original work, which is a bad criteria because of fashion cyclicity and inluential past designers. What I'm saying is it's useless to pigeonhole and say he's copying this or that because of the area he's working in, you can basically say everything is derived fom 2 or 3 lines.

What is inventive is the fabric, some of which none of the designers you listed use as far as I know, for ex jamaican hemp.

 

[dfagdfsh]



Nice try but none of what I said suggested it was original work, which is a bad criteria because of fashion cyclicity and inluential past designers. What I'm saying is it's useless to pigeonhole and say he's copying this or that because of the area he's working in, you can basically say everything is derived fom 2 or 3 lines.

What is inventive is the fabric, some of which none of the designers you listed use as far as I know, for ex jamaican hemp.

that's not true though. compare what he's doing to someone like rick or even aitour throup. yea groundbreaking designers are once in a generation, but even in most derivative collections you'll see one or two flashes of ideas, or something that pushes the boundaries.. I don't see a lot of that there. as to my personal taste, I actually like his pieces, they have a certain 'blandness' that makes them adaptable to a lot of aesthetics and the materials look interesting. it's a greatest hits collection of goth ninja pieces robbed of their context and and edge.

also fabrics are a nonissue.

 

[the shah]

why would i compare his stuff to rick or aitour ? the former is just trolling everyone after initially shocking the world and the latter is more in a conceptual sphere.

fabric is definitely not irrelevant, at least for me. in fact it may be one of the most important criteria.

at least his siamese bag looks cool.

 

[dfagdfsh]

there's two issues with using fabric is one of the few criteria by which to judge a collection (which you seem to be implying, since innovation is out the window):

1. it forces designers to continually look for whacky/strange/"unique" materials, and the clothes become more about those materials than the design of function of the pieces (see, sruli recht)

2. fabric choice are the result of so many other factors... what factories you're using, quantities produced, costs, capabilities, who is doing your fabric buying, etc..

 

[steveoffice]

i think mr.schneider would disagree with you there a bit. he demands your coat back now

 

[LA Guy]

So, he is innovative in the way the Japanese repro denim companies are innovative - JohnBull made some pretty cool 50% cotton/50% hemp (not Jamaican) 5 pocket jeans. Fair enough. However, it really seems like his line is outerwear heavy, and a good number of those pieces are leather.

Look, I don't mind looking at his clothes. None of them look terrible. The problem is that he is not working in, say, classic menswear, where the variations are in the details. He is working in a genre where originality is prized, so his collection needs to be evaluated in that context.

 

[dfagdfsh]



i think mr.schneider would disagree with you there a bit. he demands your coat back now

i was thinking about schneider when I wrote that post, but I don't know the comparison holds up completely (price, genre, presentation, etc.), as well as the fact that I don't think that either zam or schneider is bad. and remember we're talking about this in the context of SZ giving him a free pass.

 

[JilSlander]

What's everybody's thoughts on MIHARAYASUHIRO FW13?

Yakuza wear = not too bad, actually.