ALEX BAKER

HERO MAGAZINE // 22.01.17 // JUNYA WATANABE FW17

NORTH FACING

Since starting his own line in the early 90s, Junya Watanabe has carved out his own place in the fashion world. Renowned for his tailoring and use of cutting edge fabrics, his ethos is strongly informed by his time training under Comme des Garçons’ Rei Kawakubo, today melding a expert craftsmanship with a Japanese street sensitivity. 

This season’s collection introduced a collaboration with The North Face, a brand known for its fusion of street and utility-wear. It was a clever alignment, its signatures playing well off Watanabe’s. The designer’s tailored jackets were paired with branding from The North Face, while textural details emphasised deconstructed elements of one of their duffle bags – first referenced with a model lugging a giant, army green iteration. Multi-coloured walking boots and thick soled plimsolls were topped off with flat caps (not the first time we’ve seen these this season), as well as woollen baseball hats.

As is often the case with Watanabe, the main strength of the collection – aside from its quality of tailoring – rested in the separates. All wearable and bearing a consistently urban attitude, you could see any piece being mixed and matched in an existing wardrobe – and still looking fresh.



HERO MAGAZINE // 16.01.17 // ETRO FW17

APRES-SKI

This season in Milan, Etro went alpine. The paisley-centric house showed its FW17 collection against a giant screen featuring psychedelic images of pink and blue mountain ranges, setting the scene for a futuristic take on ski-inspired clothing.

Trousers were bunched at the ankle like ski pants, and worn with a hybrid hiking boot trainer – not the first we’ve seen of these this Milan season. Working with rich palette of deep greens, bright reds and autumn yellows, prints featured mountains and woodland creatures and were cast across velvet blazers, bright bombers and relaxed sweaters. Layering was rife, with contrasting textures put together to create that ‘wrapping up for winter’ feeling. Slimline silhouettes, vivid tones of purple, blue and yellow and lighter fabrics kept things light, while Shibori-style Japanese tie-dye techniques felt earthy. Punctuated with windswept hair and cold-bitten cheeks, it had us hankering for a trip to the slopes.


Photography by Luca Massaro


HERO MAGAZINE // 15.01.17 // MARCELO BURLON COUNTY OF MILAN FW17

POST-APOCALYPTIC GAUCHOS

This season, Marcelo Burlon put out a Wild West take on post-apocalyptic garments. The DJ, party-organiser, creative and fashion designer has built an empire out of keeping one finger firmly on the youth-centric pulse, and this season demonstrated his knack for fusing genres in a way that just works. 

Red and black gauchos and gauchettes paved the way in elongated silhouettes, realised with layers of nylon, foam leather, washed gabardine and cotton. Held together with straps and clips, shapes were transformed, merging sportswear with utilitarian tailoring and shirting. In a colour palette of burgundy, black, grey, and green and punctuated by camo prints, the energy was overwhelmingly military, reignited for a generation on the move. Lightning prints, extreme proportions and fluid lines instilled the feeling further – a collection inspired by the idea of “cultural armageddon”, drawing from the uncertain world we live in today.


Photography by Jessica De Maio

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