Though the recent men’s collections told us that logos are alive and well (hello, Louis Vuitton), there’s a growing awareness about the rise of anonymous, unbranded clothes. Petar Petrov is a proponent of just such sartorial understatement. He flies further under the radar than many designers, living and working in Vienna, and opting for off-season lookbook reveals rather than fashion-week runway shows, but his is a name to know. He manages the timeless/timely divide with assurance.
Take his tailoring. This season’s hero suit, a jacket, waistcoat, and long skirt combo, comes in a striking burnt orange shade and its jacket is collarless. It’s bold but far from garish. The uptick in interest in logo-less fashion stems in part from an increasing sense that excess is outré. Chalk that up to global warming, to the ridiculous Y2K trend, to the fact that we’re living through a new gilded age of gross inequality, to whatever. The tide is definitely turning, but minimalism’s recent converts aren’t ready to give up the finer things entirely.
That’s why subtlety like Petrov’s works at this moment. For the office, there’s an excellent shirt dress with discreet shaping through the waist, and for evening there’s a gorgeous gold lamé dress smocked from neckline to the mid-thighs, then fluid to the ankles, that has to be the most sensual yet easiest look of the resort season. This collection definitely has a sexy streak, as seen in the stretch leather biker shorts and a version of the jacket-and-panties outfit that has become a thing on the runway, the red carpet, and now even the street.
“Every time I work on a collection, I’m thinking what’s relevant for me now? What do I feel is really interesting?” Petrov said in Paris, where he was doing showroom appointments. In the end, the collection was equal parts structure and slink. The jackets’ strong shoulders were reproduced on t-shirt dresses, whereas draped jersey numbers cowled at the neckline or ruched to accentuate the waist.
