Fall Menswear 2012: Alexander McQueen, Prada, Gucci, Ferragamo and more.

Alexander McQueen
Knee-breeches are the best. I've been wearing them, or variants thereof, for a while now, and eagerly await the moment when Tudor pantaloons come back into style. (I can dream, OK?) So it's time once again for me to be smug about spotting an upcoming trend in advance, and/or using my pattern-recognition skills to twist reality to fit with my desired worldview.

This season's McQueen menswear doesn't reach the lofty heights of the label's recent womenswear collections -- what could? -- but it's buoyed up by a surprising amount of personality for what's essentially another riff on the classic suit. And even though McQueen chose to go for a photoshoot rather than a runway show this season, the modeling choices are interesting in themselves -- no typically lanky, beanpole-like male models here, plus some of the poses hint towards not androgyny (that staple of all high-end fashion) but a certain femininity.

Dolce & Gabbana Menswear: Fall 2012.

I think this is the first menswear post I've made on Hello, Tailor, so let me begin with this obvious yet necessary disclaimer: menswear is different from womenswear. Due to the way our society views men "dressing up", menswear tends to be a lot less daring than womenswear. I guarantee that when Fall Fashion Week comes along, there will be multiple looks that will make you go, "What the hell is that?" and then think, "Well, I suppose Lady Gaga/Tilda Swinton/Beyonce will be wearing it by next month." During Menswear Fashion Week there will be some bizarre and wonderful outfits on the runway, make no mistake, but I highly doubt that you'll be seeing many of them on men in the public eye. There will always be people willing to spend a three-figure sum on designer t-shirts, but there's less pressure for menswear designers to explore much further than that. Happily, there will also be an awful lot of well-tailored suits, so you can expect to see a lot of suit pictures in the upcoming weeks.

photos from Style.com

Dolce & Gabbana is only the second show I've looked at this Menswear Fashion Week, but I'm already sure that it's still going to be one of my favourites come the end of the season. D&G have expertly trod the line between traditional suits and eye-catching runway fashion, ending up with something that mixes unexpected fabric choices, three-piece formal suits (always a winner), and old-fashioned luxury without often straying into the territory of over-the-top opulence.

Loki was just misunderstood! Oh yeah, and some stuff from Milan Fashion Week as well.

I was looking at the new Milan Fashion Week shows in an attempt to think of some kind of cohesive theme for my first post on this blog, but then I got distracted by Thor. :/

Manish Arora

Last season Manish Arora had a kind of Bladerunner thing going on (some of it spectacular), but this year's theme appears to be: the movie Thor mated with the 1960s. First up, magical sparkly space-viking armour dresses:

*wipes away tear* I'm sorry, you guys. I just really love Thor, OK. It makes no attempt whatsoever to be adult or dark. Instead it gives you Chris Hemsworth riding a space-horse across a bridge made of rainbows, and Anthony Hopkins wearing a gold eyepatch:

The tragic tale of a young outcast dealing with his father's betrayal, and his conflicted relationship with his dumb-but-sweet brother who likes to hit things with a big hammer. In a world where everyone wears impractically voluminous capes and sparkly armour at all times, despite having perfected intergalactic travel and having magical powers. Why that movie didn't end with Loki and Thor, a) hugging tearfully, and b) becoming co-rulers of Asgard with Loki doing logistics and Thor making public appearances with his shiny shiny hammer, I just do not understand.

Look at those eyes, Thor. Why can't you two just get along?

 Anyway, check out that colour palette of iridescent metallic whatsits and tell me it isn't a tad Asgardian:

Shoulder-armour always makes me wonder about the chicken-or-egg situation regarding the relationship between sci-fi and reality. As in: jules Verne invents the submarine; Star Trek invents the fliptop mobile phone; Minority Report invents those rad touchescreen computers that actually look kind of tiring to use in real life unless you're an orchestral conductor. Which came first: silly catwalk fashion shoulder-armour, or the kind you get in every post-apocalyptic action movie ever?

Poor baby

If you've got a female character who has to do a bunch of fighting, you can be certain three things will be covered: her vagina, her nipples, and her shoulders. I guess vagina and nipples because you don't want to be censored, and shoulders to prove that she's a Fighter without having to do anything so sensible as, say, cover any internal organs. Not that I want to hate on Xena's "armoured" outfit, of course, because Xena is awesome. But you know what? Here's another thing I liked about Thor: Sif's entire body was covered with just as much armour as her bros-in-arms, and she actually looked less silly than several of them. Hello, Loki looks like he could be defeated by a low doorway.