In a season of tailoring, what will motivate women to buy their suits from Boss? The brand has its name recognition, heritage, and quality going for it, but lots of designers are coming for Boss’s market share. Some of them are making über-luxe hand-stitched suits that hark back to the earliest days of men’s tailoring. Other designers are deconstructing, reassembling, and exploding the proportions of their suits with no regard for tradition whatsoever. Boss’s suits are somewhere in between: a mix of classic silhouettes, luxe materials, and interesting, of-the-moment tweaks.
Backstage after his Fall 2019 show, chief brand officer Ingo Wilts explained his “curated” approach to the men’s and women’s collections. He was inspired by actual art curators and the New Yorkers who frequent their galleries on Thursday nights. They’re not wearing hoodies and jeans; they’re dressed up, but still feel relaxed. They’re into arty touches and would appreciate Wilts’s two-tone trousers, patchwork shearlings, color-blocked knits, and sturdy boots.
More broadly, he said he wanted everything to simply feel soft. There were new cocoon-like silhouettes, both for men and women—see: the men’s long quilted ivory puffer and the women’s voluminous camel cape—and the suits on each side were just barely loosened up. One women’s suit combined a long, gently oversize navy blazer with ultra-slim bootcut trousers. The contrast looked good, and the look will inspire many women to wear their suits with thick-heeled boots, not stilettos.
Still, Wilts’s challenge each season is to show off Boss’s prowess beyond tailoring. The sculptural wool dresses—an extension of suiting, in a way—had a cozy, polished appeal, and Sasha Pivovarova’s mercurial satin finale dress looked surprisingly red carpet–worthy.
