Dressing the part: From Ian Botham to Bez and Elvis to Cary Grant

Thought some of the looks showcased in the spring/summer 2014 menswear collections seemed familiar? So did Alexander Fury – and here he reveals the characters who appear to have inspired the catwalk creations

The look of Elvis' 1961 Blue Hawaii incarnation compares to Miuccia Prada’s spring collection

Elvis

Quote Elvis as a style inspiration, and you’re on decidedly dodgy ground. Rhinestones? Jumpsuits? The quiff? Lobster mac-and-cheese stains? Nix all of the above. We’re not thinking of Elvis during his Las Vegas drag, but his 1961 Blue Hawaii incarnation, matinee-idol handsome and garlanded with hibiscus-print aloha shirting. It was a point of reference for Miuccia Prada’s spring collection, packed with hawaiian patterned shirting harking back to mid-century tropical holiday attire and played out against a multi-coloured backdrop of oversized cut-out post-cards style flats. Wish you were there? A few other designers went on a tropical vacation too: Hedi Slimane included the Hawaiian shirt in his hyper-hipster Saint Laurent offering, while Dries van Noten and Frida Giannini at Gucci both scrolled dark, lush florals across shorts, sweaters and singlets.

David Sylvain

It was a toss-up between two Davids – Bowie and Sylvian – as the models for menswear’s new taste for skinny, sharp suiting and glistening tonic fabrics. It can easily tap in to Bowie’s glam, as well as his ever-influential Thin White Duke days. But the 1980s tinge to the frosted-tip pompadours and winkle-picker boots of Hedi Slimane’s spring Saint Laurent show tipped the scales in Sylvian’s favour. Besides, isn’t Bowie a “style icon” whose ubiquity is both a blessing and a curse? Look hard enough and you can see him in almost any collection. Slimane has mined him as a reference point in his prior incarnation at Dior Homme, but this time the Lurex-flecked suiting, shiny satin bombers and slender PVC trews – so bad they were great – were far too dodgy for the sartorially impeccable Bowie. Sylvian’s presence was also felt at Lanvin, and the closing tuxedo at Louis Vuitton – velvet, shot through with mother-of-pearl – could have come straight from a Japan album cover.

Bez

It’s not for me to cast aspersions on the lifestyles of certain fashion designers, but in the words of Shameless, they seem to know how to throw a party. Or at least, how to attend one. There was a clubby, ravey vein that ran through some of the best offerings of the spring shows: the uniform silhouette consisting of baggy t-shirts, short-shorts and volume-pumped trainers. The Happy Monday’s Bez (a.k.a. Mark Berry) may not have been a stated influence, but he was certainly an insidious presence. In Paris, Raf Simons and Rick Owens were the main proponents. The former offered an acieeed-bright, polyester-blended ode to nineties Belgian Gabba, while Owens enlisted an Estonian metal band to “serenade” his audience at ear-splitting volume. London based Bez-heads included Christopher Shannon, who matchy-matched neon-bright latex shirts and PVC shorts, and Craig Green, whose tie-dyed shirting offered a narcotic-free but nevertheless totally trippy psychedelic experience.

Martin von Essenbeck

Yes, these are the men’s trends for spring/summer 2014. And if you haven’t seen Luchino Visconti’s The Damned, the picture below will need some explaining. Honestly, there weren’t a huge number of collections referencing Helmut Berger’s turn as Martin von Essenbeck, the Marlene Dietrich-impersonating scion of a German family disintegrating into decadence during the 1930s. But there was one: Thom Browne’s, packed with lipstick, high heels and military braided jackets. Okay, so occasionally it frogmarched into sartorial territory best left occupied (no pun) by Herr Otto Flick in ‘Allo Allo!, but nevertheless there’s something brewing around this feeling. Leap forward six months to the Milanese autumn/winter 2014 shows, and Prada sends out a homage to 1930s via 1970s with distinct Weimar undertones. Next season, it’ll be everywhere. Probably minus the lipstick, though.

Ian Botham

Your eyes don’t deceive you: that is former Test captain Ian Botham being cited as a style icon. Bear with me. He isn’t really a muse of the season – he’s a representative of one of the key themes thrown up by the spring/summer 2014 collections: sportswear. That is, luxed-up, tricked-out fashion sportswear, proffered with special aplomb in Italy (look back to last week’s fashion pages and you’ll see the girls got very much the same from the Italians, too). Nevertheless, there was one overtly Botham-inspired collection: the all-cricket-white paean to Lords designed by Thom Browne for Moncler Gamme Bleu, which bowled us over in Milan last June. The other key players in these sport-style stakes are the sleek and streamlined go-faster Gucci, number-splashed marathon-man inspirations at Salvatore Ferragamo and the muscle-bound, Olympicstyle outing from Donatella Versace.

Cary Grant

Designers push and provoke their catwalk audiences, but at the end of the day, they know suits sell. They always have – hence the fact that Cary Grant is one of a multitude of suited-and-booted cinematic icons that could be trotted out as supposed “inspiration” for the sharp suiting we saw for spring/summer 2014. We saw it for autumn/winter, and we’ll see it for the season after that, too. Because the tailored suit is an essential component of most men’s wardrobes. And if you have to do it, you should do it well. Stefano Pilati’s debut for Ermenegildo Zegna offered a new slant: subtle changes in buttoning, proportion, a softer, less basted and bombasted feel, coats as soft as dressing gowns and suits with an easy drape. This felt like truly modern menswear, all the elegance of Cary Grant but without the vintage feel. Zegna is also the tailor’s tailor, quite literally, manufacturing for everyone from Tom Ford, to Gucci, to Saint Laurent, where Pilati once held the reins. In short, they know their stuff, and know it doesn’t have to be stuffy.