How do you get from "jeans and a T-shirt" to nipple-baring organza tops and gigantic pants with paper-bag-waist pants trailing ribbons? The minds of Duckie Brown's Steven Cox and Daniel Silver work in mysterious ways. Yes, they started out with the sturdiest of building blocks of the American male wardrobe this season, but where they wound up was far, far away. It wasn't androgynous, the predominant meme of the Spring '16 men's shows so far, as much as it was ambiguous. The color story played into that—salmon pink with denim blue, lilac and navy, the electric yellow of an oversized suit. The textures had a role too. Has a men's label on this side of the Atlantic ever used so much silk charmeuse? But mostly it was in the details: the piecrust frills of the size 48 pants cinched to fit young men with delicate, size 28 waists; the gentle pin-tucking at the cuffs of the short sleeves designed to mimic the way guys roll them up; the hood of an anorak that looked like nothing so much as a ruffle.
An oversized suit in that electric yellow retained its masculine tang, but only because it was so unapologetically big. Its soft, unlined construction will have Duckie believers going over to the large size. An anorak worn backwards so that its front blousoned in back in a manner that mid-century couturiers would recognize will require a much more adventurous type. In other words, not a jeans and T-shirt man. We hope we see it happen.
