If last season was a force restart—turn it off, cross your fingers, turn it on again, see what fires up—then this one sees designers adapt their creative coding to reality’s altered hardware. At Dunhill (caps down is the house style), Mark Weston went last season for a rigorous inside-out rebuild of the tailoring tropes that are common to this and many other houses. This season he pushed more into the automotive and masculine-accessory backstory of the label, and introduced a personal touch that few past Dunhill collections have featured.
That authorial flourish came via the knits that were directly drawn from Weston’s mother outfitting him and his brothers in what they termed a “Doctor Who scarf.” That was a reference back to Tom Baker, the fourth actor to play the role, whose haphazardly paneled scarves were the touchstone of a late-’70s preface of steampunk, future-Edwardian costume. Weston said he included these different-weave patchwork pieces partly to evoke his mother’s “sense that waste was something that was just not done” and also because of the jaunty, fun irregularity they offered within the collection as a whole. More fun came in the form of fanny packs made in pleated pieces of reverse silk jacquard—also used in regal shirting—that were constructed to masquerade as cummerbunds. The silks came from Weston’s contemplation of interior design in old country houses, and the reversing of them emphasized the unintended consequence of the hand.
An old-school Dunhill piece called the Compendium—an accessory that contained everything one desk jockey could need, including cigarette compartment, penknife, lighter holder, and pen tray—inspired a piece of outerwear named in its honor. Just as versatile, but far healthier, this new Compendium was an attractive parka, designed to be splittable by zipper into long or short variants. The outer came in superlight technical nylon, while three liners—each wearable on their own or under the shell—were delivered in quilted down, double-faced logo-lined cashmere, or a version in sheared wool woven into a fabric that was a sheepskin alternative, both organic and cruelty free. Weston said more mix-and-matchable variations would be offered in seasons to come. Other highlight outerwear pieces included a double-faced cocoon coat in houndstooth, a padded leather overcoat that only required walnut buttons to complete the vintage-car-interior-inspired image, and a three-material moto jacket Weston pitched as an alternative to your trusty field jacket.
