It’s too darn hot for Umit Benan. On a visit to his Navigli studio today the designer was chomping moodily on a cigar and lamenting about how high the mercury here in Milan is rising. And yet, every cloud: arrayed on the rails behind him were some garments that cooled you down just by looking at them.
Chief among them were his signature airy caftans in striped, light diaphanous cotton and a pant in dark navy or off white that had a vaguely workwear shape yet was delivered in leisure-centric pajama silk: really lush. There were also shirts and shorts in the same material to complete the triptych of too-hot go-tos. The long unisex skirts in a less delicate fabric were airy options too.
Benan branched out into bolder color than previously via a vivid sunstroke red. It proved alarmingly attractive transmitted via his low-armholed, long-yoked shirts in silk and the powerfully precise Caruso-manufactured but Benan-specified suiting that is the bread and butter of this high-rolling brand. The designer said that around 40% of sales are now being generated by made-to-measure orders, increasingly in the US.
Subtly applied except for one irresistible sailor hat was an undercurrent of maritime reference, mostly pant focused. Benan said he’d imagined himself off-duty in some Cuban port—Cuba is the starting point for the B+ aesthetic—watching shore leave visitors mingling with the local landlubbers. This led to the interestingly updated sailor pants, pleat fronted instead of flat, and some fetching scarf detailing on the shirting.
Benan’s designs are gorgeously fashioned and meticulously thought through. They are also priced at a point that makes conveying their cost-to-value ratio near impossible via imagery alone: only when you touch, feel, and wear them do you understand. Hot stuff.
