With a CFDA award under their belts and the adoring cheers of a partisan crowd ringing in their ears, Rag & Bone's David Neville and Marcus Wainwright are clearly on a roll. It's a situation that should quite rightly make them nervous. Still, if this collection was any indication, their response has been safe but sure: Twist the classics, but honor them too. That's how they got away with a bowling shirt that was about as far from Homer Simpson as Uranus. In fact, the menswear in Neville and Wainwright's spring collection starred a couple of shirty revisions: military here, banker's there. That kind of repositioning is emerging as the duo's signature, because they did the same thing with jackets. The basic safari had a certain inevitability, but there was also a glazed cotton blazer/biker jacket hybrid that would be perfect for the weekend warriors who are likely to fall hard for these clothes.
All that aside, there was a smidgen of envelope-pushing. A suit in a sultry gray shantung had a boxy cut that should appeal to latter-day lounge lizards. And the shrunken arms and legs of the closing evening look had a definite Browne flair. But the most appealing element of Rag & Bone's proposition may ultimately be the movie-buff strand that produced a gray pinstripe three-piece over a cashmere Henley. Tuck that next to an average Armani, and you might find yourself pushing Bernardo Bertolucci as a seminal menswear influence.
