New beginnings and bittersweet endings

Men’s Fall 2022 highlights

With the spike in Omicron cases rising in the early part of 2022 leaving most brands pulling out their shows from the fashion calendar, only a few were left to showcase their offerings for the coming season. But just like in life and in fashion, the show must go on. From the passing of Louis Vuitton’s Virgil Abloh to Nigo’s arrival in Kenzo, and out with the new and in with the old at Prada and Dior, here are our favorite highlights from the fall 2022 collections.

Louis Vuitton

The men’s Fall 2022 collection of Louis Vuitton is the final show of its late artistic director Virgil Abloh. Abloh passed away in November of last year after a two-year battle with cancer, sending shockwaves throughout the world. Since his historic appointment to the 168-year-old house four years ago, he has changed the game by championing the youth and spreading his unparalleled influence that goes far beyond fashion with music, art and design. His final collection, his eighth for the biggest luxury house in the world, poetically combines all the different motifs he has created for the past seven seasons. It’s as if he had predicted his swan song. The narrative of his designs always revolves around the “coming of age” theme — youthful, hopeful and never being defined by norms. Metaphorically like the imaginative mind of an innocent child. He has transformed the house of Louis Vuitton like no other. Indeed, we have lost one of the greats.

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Louis Vuitton is in Greenbelt 3, Ayala Center, Makati.

Dior

After three years of successful collaborations with contemporary artists season after season, Kim Jones is looking inwards for his next outing. His partnerships with artists like KAWS, Raymond Pettibon, Hajime Sorayama, Daniel Arsham, and even streetwear brand Stussy, has proven Jones’ stronghold on the menswear zeitgeist. So for his fall 2022 collection — and coincidentally the 75th anniversary of the house of Dior — the designer looks no further and pays tribute to the heritage of the storied Parisian house. You can say this is still a collaboration of sorts, but this time with the spirit of Monsieur Dior himself.

The collection was filled with the iconic house codes of Dior, from the floral embroideries to the Cannage stitching, from the pinched-at-the-waist jackets (a nod to the Bar jacket) to the leopard prints from the early Dior collections. There’s even a cheeky tribute to Monsieur Dior’s dog, Bobby.

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Dior is in Greenbelt 3, Ayala Center, Makati.

Kenzo

A new era of Kenzo has officially begun. Nigo, the streetwear legend who is a known collaborator of Pharrell Williams, Virgil Abloh and Kanye West, and an influential force in turning the street subculture to hypebeast mainstream back in the ’90s with Bathing Ape and Billionaire Boys Club, has presented his first show for the Parisian house as its new creative director. His debut collection was a tribute to the brand’s founder Kenzo Takada who rose to fame in the ’70s for merging vibrant Japanese textures and influences with Western construction. The collection featured kimonos reimagined as overcoats, poppies and cherry blossom prints dug from the archives and rendered anew in tailored pieces, and ’60s suiting popularized by Takada in the ’80s, but with a 2020s approach. There was also a slight nod to the Tiger house code that was commercially successful under former Kenzo creative directors Humberto Leon and Carol Lim. Overall, the brand featured straightforward, wearable clothes that return to its roots but breathe new life into its colorful history. Kenzo by Nigo is definitely something to watch out for.

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Kenzo is in Akimbo, Uptown Mall, Taguig.

Prada

Veteran Hollywood actors Kyle MacLachlan and Jeff Goldblum made the internet abuzz when they opened and closed the Prada men’s fall 2022 show. It was reminiscent of the momentous starry cast from fall 2012 with legends Gary Oldman and Willem Dafoe headlining the show. What these silver fox men have in common: they prove there is beauty in the command one brings to the clothes. They give a sense of seasoned sophistication in a time when all the rage is about people dressing like they go to Euphoria High or the Y2K resurgence with Gen Zs on Tiktok. And this is what makes Prada stand out from the rest. They go the opposite direction of what everyone else is doing. This season the Italian fashion house is making a statement in the form of supersize leather trench coats, bomber jackets, structured field jackets and mohair-trimmed overcoats. Solid, no-fuss clothes that get the job done and carry the weight — literally and figuratively.

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Prada is in Greenbelt 4, Ayala Center, Makati.