Englishmen in absentia David Neville and Marcus Wainwright have spent most of their design careers in New York. Then London knocked, and Rag & Bone became the latest high-profile menswear label to join the city's expanding men's week. "We thought it'd be cool to come to London," Wainwright said after their show today, although, he added, "there was an added pressure to win over a lot of people who are much less familiar with what we do."
Accordingly, though Neville and Wainwright dialed up the stage theatrics—mounted mirrors that spun to the Thom Yorke-selected beats, done up by London's United Visual Artists, who work on U2's stage shows—they distilled their designs to reiterate what Rag & Bone is about. Last season, showing in New York, they had laddish toughs in English fabrics. Here, they emphasized the Japanese. This included their take on a traditional Japanese sashiko fabric, as well as souped-up textiles from Japan including a sturdy-looking cotton washed with salt, and another coated with Teflon.
Stoutly wearable menswear like this can feel like it's hiding in plain sight, especially in a city teeming with some of fashion's most experimental experimenters. Which gave a sort of poetic aptness to this season's unlikely collaboration, with Caleb Crye of the Brooklyn-based military apparel specialist Crye Precision. He has revolutionized camouflage patterning for the U.S. armed forces and made combat suits for Navy SEALs, but, Wainwright laughed, "he's never made anything he could wear." The Velcro-closing cargo pant here took care of that.
