Lil Buck and Mikhail Baryshnikov walk into a bar…
For Fall 2015, Rag & Bone landed one of the best, most unexpected castings in recent history. That's not normally how these reviews start, but that's the story here. "Rag & Bone is about opposites," said Marcus Wainwright, cohead of the brand along with David Neville. "It's about contrast—street/tailoring, America/England, hard/soft, and all that. It wasn't necessarily about dance, it was about movement in the clothes. It was a conversation about old school/new school." And so Buck and Baryshnikov did just that. The three-plus-minute video clip premiered at the presentation of the men's line in New York, and it was almost enough to completely eclipse the clothes—except it couldn't go unnoticed how effing cool Baryshnikov, now 67 years old, looked in the draped and layered collection.
Wainwright said the concept came together after the clothes, but the line did look dance-ready thanks to lots of unstructured tailoring, draped knits, and long parkas, all styled with shirts around the waist, tonal scarves, and tall collars or hoods. Dance-ready, or perhaps battle-ready? "I love the ninja aspect of things, the idea of it being some sort of army, the idea of combat," said Wainwright. Either way, the clothes looked ready for performance, be it on stage or in a gym (not that you'd wear a parka to a New York Sports Club). Wool flannel pants were cut like sport pants akin to soccer warm-ups. Sneakers and backpacks were the accessories du jour. "It's not like we've gone full Gore-Tex," Wainwright clarified. The most tech-looking fabrics were really just coated cotton and linen. And the showstopper brought things back to Rag & Bone's roots in the heritage side of menswear—an impeccably tailored, heather gray, bonded jersey overcoat, sophisticated enough for a 67-year-old, cool enough for Baryshnikov.
