MAN Fall 2018 Menswear...Fashionweekly...On Fow24news.com

At a time when identity politics are exploding in all directions, and young people are urgently articulating their truths in public as never before, fashion at its grassroots level mirrors everything.....
That makes it dangerous to generalize about what went on at MAN, Lulu Kennedy’s three-name lineup of new talent, but perhaps the one thing that unites the wildly disparate shows put on by Art School, Rottingdean Bazaar, and Stefan Cooke is their drive to express authenticity.

Eden Loweth and Tom Barratt of Art School speak to gender non-binary issues. “Young people are under attack now, especially the people I know, on the street, every day,” said Loweth, before their show. He and Barratt decided to double down on glamour, filtering their inspirations through the prism of their generation’s idols. “Donatella’s in the air!” Barratt declared, adding Pete Burns and Kylie Jenner to their mix of references. In practice, their affirmations of character on the runway chime with what Eckhaus Latta is doing in New York: sending friends out in ’90s-ish spaghetti strap dresses, shirts worn as minidresses, school uniform suits, and sheer body-con stretch tulle sparkled up with crystal embroidery. Loweth was keen to emphasize, however, that concentrating on commercial business is as much a focus for him and Barratt as putting on a performative demo for the world. “I haven’t worked this long for that not to be the case.” Nearest to that goal: a pair of black flares with silver tinsel streaming from one leg and the asymmetric glitter gown that closed their segment.

Rottingdean Bazaar’s very, very British slice of reality was led by a true English eccentric, the Bird Man who (for want of a better term) hawks bird whistles on the streets of Brighton. Luke Brooks and James Theseus Buck live just along the coast from Brighton, and they’re beloved for their ingeniously hilarious appropriations of the stuff of daily life. One chap was entirely clothed in supermarket price stickers, collaged into a trompe l’oeil of rugby shirt and jeans. The artist Julie Verhoeven came on dressed in a pair of pub dartboards printed with, as Buck pointed out, ”the names of things in our house.” Brighton joke shops were a source for the bubbly, printed suits the pair had treated with a Japanese shibori technique. “These started as blow-up stag night costumes,” said Brooks, pointing out the one in brown. “This one’s a dinosaur. And this over here is a Transformer.” Again, this was a friends and family show. Brooks’s artist father, Steve, walked in a T-shirt declaring “we do big sizes.” Yes, this was a show affirmative of men of size, too, but even more to the point, the duo demonstrated that creativity can make cheerfulness out of almost nothing. It ended with the everybody-come-together Coke anthem: “It’s the real thing.”

Stefan Cooke is the MAN newcomer this season, fresh from winning the H&M young designer prize, which gave him the funding for this, his first collection since graduating from Central Saint Martins MA in 2017. Jake Burt, his classmate and partner, is a pattern cutter. Questioned about the role he took in it, he laughed, “Well, it’s us talking about fashion, and how simple it can be, really.” Their take on the authentic was a series of brilliant eye-tricking techniques brought about by photographing secondhand jeans, leather jackets, and trenchcoats sourced on eBay, and then digitally printing them on a base silhouette of super-skinny shapes created from elastic bandages. Its sophisticated polish and thoroughness were impressive, from the execution of the Norwegian- and argyle-themed knitwear (by Kate Britton) to the lozenge-patchworked coats, made of Kevlar material produced in a Dorset factory near Burt’s birthplace in the southwest of England. In a way, it’s another take on down-home creativity, brought together by a team of ex-schoolmates. If Cooke can pull this off in the space of five weeks, as he said, he’s going to go far.