“Boys today are contaminated by the past but they live in the future,” said designer Ennio Capasa before his menswear show on Saturday.
The same could be said about Capasa and his brand, Costume National, always with a foot firmly planted in the sartorial past of rock n’ roll but with a glance towards its possible future. This time that menswear future looks to be of the peacock/dandy variety. For this fall/winter 2015 collection was designed to get noticed, which is pretty much a guarantee if you wear a jacket crafted out of feathers, a perfecto covered in shimmering crystals, a suit built from blue velvet or some form-fitting sweaters knitted from fluffy mohair.
Even when Capasa toned things down a bit, with his black and camel combos and slim pinstriped suits, they still stood out, glinting as they did with silver metal eyelets adorning everything from ankle boots and bags to belts and lapels, or alternatively outerwear tricked out with patch panels of suede and leather sliced up with slanting zipper pockets.
Subtler, yet no less tricky, were pieces the designer outfitted with what looked to be magnetic button closures. They made for a nice echo of the eyelet embellishment idea that opened the show.
It was nice to see Capasa getting a bit bolder with his designs. And while the long feather coat and the mohair sweaters might be destined to live only on the pages of glossy menswear magazines, there was still enough on offer in this show that pushed the envelope without letting the brand’s core values slip away.
