SYLVANUS URBAN Sylvanus Urban - The Space Issue | Page 74

A Minimalist in
a Maximalist World
THE WAR AGAINST THE WHITE TEE
Author: Matthew Wong
Before
the
revolution,
menswear was akin to a
Copenhagen coffee shop: clean in
design, simple in silhouette, and
executed with precision and style.
The minimalist’s dream wardrobe
could be found in the kind of
stores that seemed so pristine
that you’d almost hesitate to
enter, for fear of tracking in grit of
the urban outdoors. The sparse
clothing rack featuring nothing
but timeless basics—black jeans,
white tees, denim and motorcycle
jackets, and of course a couple of
pairs of Common Projects sitting
below—would
simultaneously
thrill and calm the senses.
But what was that noise,
thrumming in the distance and
gathering like storm clouds on the
horizon? In the midst of crafting
our perfectly curated wardrobes,
the likes of Alessandro Michele
and Demna Gvasalia began
beating their drums as they
marched their explosion of
outrageous, floral print-adorned
soldiers down the runways. Their
goal?
To overcome simplicity
with the outlandish, the gaudy,
the loudly ironic.
How could
plain and clean stand up to a
shimmering brocade three-piece
suit? Sadly, it didn’t take long
for the Stan Smiths' of the world
to begin to look stale. They were
soon defeated, the death knell
drowned out by millions of OMG
NEED comments and exploding
heart emojis in response to the
most outlandish of outfits. The
maximalist era had begun.
The order of Maxis, if you
will, are constructed on the ideas
of lawless