Kaiser Karl once famously said that his women's collection for Lagerfeld Gallery is the way he would dress if he were a woman. Fair to assume, then, that the corresponding men's collection is aimed squarely at the designer himself. For fall, the point was driven home by belt buckles that shouted "KARL," an ice-pink tie with his name scrawled across it, and the leanness of the tailoring (reflecting M. Lagerfeld's much-publicized trim physique).
But the Lagerfeld man looked slightly askew this season, and it had something to do with the relentless eighties edge of the collection. Sure, there's a wave of bands like Franz Ferdinand and Interpol who are mining this particular corner of pop culture for the mother lode. But the skinny pin-striped suit and white sneaker combo is too purely retro to stand as a contemporary fashion statement. (Joe Jackson is now a nostalgia act, after all.) Pointy white ponyskin loafers paired with narrow trousers didn't help, and neither did the irony of a white hoodie that identified its wearer as a "trustafarian" (i.e., a would-be bohemian supported by a trust fund). Part of the word was picked out in an Yves Klein blue, which also cropped up as the lining of a coat and the New Wave-ish stripe on a tie. Much more promising were a couple of items that featured an updated camouflage print, especially a jacket with knitted cuffs.
