Reeves .THE FALL RETROSPECTIVE.
After a big push by designers and cloth houses on Tweed last fall/winter, this years "fall cloth" for Reeves has been lighter weight flannel. Both Loro Piana and Scabal released new, and chunky flannel books last year and this got a lot people in the tailoring community (myself included) very excited about this cold weather cloth.
The color of choice was the ever popular ink blue or French navy blue that we have been seeing in menswear for quite some time although the blues are getting even lighter. The big surprise was the second color that was pushed by Loro Piana especially, namely burgundy or claret. Silhouettes continued to lengthen and lapels got wider at Reeves as stylistically I am feeling more and more a trend towards the late 70s and early 80s as an influence on fashion, art and design.
Tweed was still very popular and I think will be for some time to come, the versatility and ease of it is ideal for the less structured working lives we mostly all have now. The old world charm of this cloth is still very hip and I am even seeing bankers ordering full tweed suits now which is quite extraordinary.
Finally I started seeing a resurgence in pinstripes and larger stripes amongst CEOs and bankers. Its interesting to see these cloths come back to the business world and at first it seems in contrast to the tweed phenomenon at least if we look at suits and cloths using their traditional signifiers. What we are seeing is a general trend across all fields towards nostalgia but with a need to be seen as dynamic and above all successful individuals in uncertain and changing times. This attitude is pushing out the "timeless" "four season" plain navy or charcoal suit which is all about staying still and anonymity.
The leading edge are past now very dated ideas about "appropriate" for town, country, business or pleasure. It doesn't matter if you are wearing H Lesser Chalk Stripes or Harris Tweed as long as your tailoring is of the best quality and you look great wearing it.
