When it comes to mens designer clothes, the risk is always the same: yet another men’s wardrobe of stiff jackets, shouty, tacky logos and a token nod to streetwear just to look current.
Vivienne Westwood chooses a different game. The statement – visible and audible in the latest collection – is clear: cuts rooted in the Savile Row tradition, shirts that work from day to night, kilts that nod to Scottish heritage and orbs in heavy rotation, a reminder of the maison’s signature for long-time fashion aficionados.
Starting from tailoring
The starting point is still tailoring. From jackets to coats, trousers to kilts, the lines follow the body’s proportions and sharpen them. They shift, tilt, put the body in slight tension – a reminder that clothing and fashion are, in the end, a very human business, with us at the centre.
The suit here is not a tired office uniform. It’s an infrastructure that frames printed shirts, technical-leaning knitwear and T-shirts with the classic embroidered orb. The collection’s implicit promise – despite the breadth of it – is simple: building a wardrobe that works for a meeting, an exhibition, a late flight, without ever defaulting to a drab corporate dress code.
The tartan
Tartan is present, and then some. We’ve already seen it in the women’s bag collections and it returns here – in fine checks and broader grids – in the men’s line. Jacquards that flip right and wrong side, yarns with a neon touch and checks running across jackets and knitwear, right down to the polos. Patterns that go beyond a flat print round off a collection which, while keeping Vivienne Westwood’s signature eccentricity, is held together by a very clear thread.
What makes the Vivienne Westwood men’s wardrobe unique is the lack of an obsession with the “statement piece”. The main idea is that every item should work in combination with the rest of the collection. Tartan is never a mere graphic trick, nor a lazy homage to Scottish culture. Prints on t-shirts are more than a wink to youngsters’ code: it’s the use of a medium to convey a very clear message.
Details up close
Seen up close, this mens designer clothes collection by Westwood plays everything on detail. Buttons nudged slightly off-centre, lapels opening as if they’re tracking the movement of the shoulders, pleats engineered to create volume without weight.
The embroidered orb is everywhere, yes – but used with restraint: never dominating the look, always signing it off.
The idea of a wardrobe
The strength of this proposal, compared with so much men’s luxury, lies in the idea of a modular wardrobe. Wide tartan trousers can sit under a black coat with an almost military construction, but work just as well with a light knit and a pair of polished derby shoes. The kilt is not a punk caricature for the runway; it becomes a real alternative, recalling Vivienne’s homage to the royal culture of the British Isles.
In this sense, the collection dismantles, once and for all, the myth of the “special occasion outfit” that lives at the back of the wardrobe. Here everything is designed to move and rotate: the same suit can deliver different looks for daytime, evening, and a weekend out of town.
