FALL 2017 MENSWEAR
Emporio Armani
L ast night outside Ermenegildo
Zegna, menswear confrere Tom
Stubbs was talking about what he
insisted was a trend for “dry han-
dle”—fashionese for this-season
menswear fabrics that are tactile,
overtly analogue, rich in texture and
variation both to the touch and the
eye.Well chapeau, Stubbs, for this
morning Emporio Armani had all the
dry handle you could handle. The
tailoring silhouette today was about
an eight-button, jauntily skirted
single-vent jacket above a full,
pleated pant.
But the handle—or feel—was the focus, via velvet brocades that looked like topographical
cross sections, in panels of shaved fur, zip-up hoodies decorated with fine-gauged tressela-
tions of pattern, and reams of wool pants purposefully left apparently raw.
The backdrop was a silhouette of fire escapes, and there was a New York theme evinced by a
hoodie inlaid with a shining relief of the Chrysler Building peak under moonlight. The accesso-
ries were sometimes strangely set forth: worn over a metal-finish biker, a chest-borne strap-on
furry pocket featured the fingers of a single glove—where was the other hand in that handle?
After an intervention—sleek snowboard-orientated sportswear—there came a series of his and
hers looks. The atmosphere on planet Armani remains unique.
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