Autumn/Winter 2016 Menswear trends: Colour palette and styling

Now for the colour section...for once the colour combinations actually excited me more than the prints. The general colour palette for Autumn/Winter 2016 menswear is deep(black, dark green and inky blue), earthy(cinnamon, amber and camel) and quite retro(wine, teal and yellow). There was an astonishing amount of black on the runway with some designers opting to have entirely dark collections. As a contrast to this, there was also a bright blue and red/orange colour combination which prevented the collections from feeling too moody. 

I won't write much more about the colours as these boards are pretty self explanatory...(I hope!)

Another few trends I picked up on related to fabric choices, two contrasting fabric trends in particular caught my attention. Firstly I noticed the large amount of Shine and shimmer fabrics, this had also been an obvious trend in the Womens Pre-fall 2016 collections and so I was already looking to see if it would develop/gain popularity in menswear. It did. With designers such as Vivienne Westwood and J W Anderson and collections from Topman design and Calvin Klein collection all jumping on board with this trend to make a shimmering metallic runway. 

On the flip side of this there was an obvious preference for matte leather over shiny polished leather jackets. 

Velvet was another fabric trend that aught my attention, I have begun looking at the womenswear A/W 16 trends already and have noticed that velvet seems to be a popular fabric choice in all areas. I am not particularly surprised by this as the general atmosphere of current catwalk menswear seems to be rebellious, punk inspired and a little bit dark...dark themes tend to align themselves with black and velvet quite nicely.

Not so much a fabric, more of a fabric effect, embroidered denim began to emerge in the Spring/Summer 2016 collections and seems to have continued into Autumn/Winter with big fashion houses like Roberto Cavalli, Valentino, D&G and Gucci all showing their support. Applique, print, studding and embroidery are a few of the many effects the designers seem to be playing around with using on denim.

Badges and patches, particularly for outerwear, are something I am often asked to do for work, they are also one of the things I find most tedious. I find it extremely hard to get inspiration for graphic badge design and so coming across a few in the runway collections was extremely helpful.

Generally I'm so focussed on looking at the prints to spot trends that I forget to look at the garments themselves, but even I couldn't miss these two trends. Oversized was a huge('scuse the awful pun) trend throughout the menswear collections particularly in relation to sleeve length and the size of utility pockets.

Well that is everything I have to offer for menswear for Autumn/Winter 2016 so I hope you find it useful. Hopefully I will find it easier to identify mens print trends as time goes on :)

Autumn/Winter 2016 Menswear trend report: Print

For Autumn/Winter 2016 I have decided to do a menswear trend report as well as my usual womenswear one.  Partially because I 'm now working in menswear, but mainly because menswear is now so closely linked with womenswear. This season, more than any previous, we have seen a huge increase in designers replacing separate gender collections with women+men combined collections. The gender divide in fashion is becoming even more blurred as women and men are integrated throughout the runway collections. In fact, it would not surprise me if this time next year I am posting a colossal set of combined men+women trends, but for now I will keep them separate. 

(NB: In the next few weeks I will be working on a post which looks at the 'genderless' topic and how it is affecting the fashion industry).

As this season is my first time looking at menswear trends, my boards are not as tightly themed as my womenswear boards normally are, so apologies for that. I guess they'll improve as time goes on. I find menswear print trend reports particularly taxing as there doesn't seem to be enough graphic imagery to clearly identify any strong trends....but I have done my best to pull some together....anyway enough apologies and excuses,here is the print trend section of my Autumn/Winter 2016 menswear report.

Stripes are a collection staple for most seasons and the new collections for A/W16 are proving to be no different. As a general rule stripes for the coming season are quite tight with narrow spacing and toned down/minimal in colour. My favourite stripes are definitely the placed ones at James Long and the ombre knitted stripes at Missoni. I would probably avoid the tonal grey stripes at Craig Green as they have holocaust striped pyjama connotations.

As stated previously I don't really know the normal print content of the menswear collections but I did notice a heavy amount of checks, particularly red/black and black/white combinations- very punk inspired. In fact I sensed an entire atmosphere of rebellion in the menswear collections with politically inspired graphics, ragged edged styling and punk/hardware accessories. It will definitely be interesting to see if this transpires across to womenswear.

 

From punk rebellion to military uniformity, camouflage seems to be a menswear staple. There didn't seem to be anything particularly new/groundbreaking in the camo area but I did quite like the stretched camouflage prints found at Maharishi and the blue and red pop colours added to a classic camo at Moncler Gamme Bleu.

 

Although I am unaware of the recent history of animal print in menswear, I know that, in womenswear, it has taken a back seat recently. This year, however, it seems to be re-emerging in a very classic form- no garish pop colour leopard prints, no abstract animal patterns, just prints representational of actual animal hides.

The abstract prints seem to be where designers have chosen to inject the most printed colour and we all know how much I love colour. From painted brushstroke effect artworks to ink splodges and tie dye, this was probably the only collection of menswear graphics that actually had enough of a following to stand out as a trend. I think the Daks collection absolutely nailed abstract prints for Autumn/Winter 2016, giving them a soft watercolour effect and applying the rich earthy colour palette to them.

 

In contrast to the hand-drawn/hand-painted route that most designers have chosen to go down for AW16, the oversized geo trend offers a range of large scale structures and oversized flat coloured shapes. This is a welcome change of scenery and I really like the oversized aspect.

From large scale geometrics to their polar opposite- small florals. I was unsure what to expect of menswear florals. As a womenswear print designer who is currently trying her hand at menswear(an interesting experiment) I am constantly faced with the dilemma of creating a masculine floral. I wouldn't say that any of the florals here strike me as particularly 'masculine', in fact, when removed from the context, and shown as a close up print rather than on a garment, I think people would struggle to identify which collection they belong to. I am extremely happy to be able to fit all floral prints on one board- in womenswear there are usually so many floral prints that I have to make multiple floral trend boards. All I can really gather from men's florals is that there are a lot with an amber colouration and dark grounds seem to be popular. 

Paisley wasn't actually a huge trend on the menswear catwalks for Autumn/Winter 2016 but I feel like it is a print design staple across the board so I always like to include it anyway just to see if there are any new print ideas... on the whole it's just more of the same traditional paisleys in the new seasonal colour palette. This being said, I did really like Katie Eary's simplified amber paisley and think it could very easily be applied to commercial menswear.

 

Photo prints seem to be a lot more popular in the men''s collections than in the women''s. For A/W16 there seems to be a trend of figurative photography, although there aren't really enough photographic prints to identify a specific trend.

Moving on from the only digital prints I found(photographic ones) to the most popular trend of hand-drawn/hand-painted imagery. In this board I have included linear outline imagery as I feel it sits quite nicely alongside the outline sketches. If you haven't already, I would definitely advise taking a look at the Yohji Yamamoto collection as it has beautiful outline facial sketches reminiscent of Picasso paintings.

Even the license designs have a hand-drawn feel to them- I particularly love the Mickey Mouse sketchy artworks used at Iceberg and how they have been combined with a retro stripe. It's also quite refreshing not to see a hoard of star wars insignia as I really feel that I have reached stars wars saturation point. It is unsurprising, however, that this has been replaced by a Marvel license. I am however, slightly shocked that there weren't more Marvel related graphics as an incredible 8 Marvel and DC films are set to be released in 2016; from Deadpool in February and Batman vs Superman in march all the way through to Sinister Six in November. 

Novelty prints and conversationals are finally making a comeback. The collections for Autumn/Winter 2016 featured a lot of placed singly motifs on sweatshirts and knitted jumpers, topics varying from animals to rockets.

 

The slogans seemed to cover quite a range of topics, all quite controversial, menswear fashion designers seem to be using their garments as a platform to provide political comment which I absolutely love. Juun J, in particular, had a range of controversial slogans as the collection was themed around the 'genderless' topic which I will be writing about soon.

That's all the Menswear print trends I picked up on for Autumn/Winter 2016. As always I would love to hear your comments and which trends you think will be popular. Also if you feel I have missed anything please let me know, menswear is not my forte and it's always extremely interesting to see what other designers have picked up on.

I should have the colour and styling menswear post ready this evening so stay tuned ;)

Premiere Vision Spring/Summer 2017

The time has come for my Premiere Vision Paris trend report. I requested a press pass again this year so that I have enough photos to make a worthwhile report. It's also really useful to jog my memory of which prints fall into each new trend.

 For Autumn/Winter 2016 I missed the Premiere Vision show as I was unable to have the time off work, this definitely had negative implications on my ability to work inline with the trends and really affected my motivation at work. It also ruined my seasonal Premiere Vision trend report as I didn't get to see the trends and so was only able to create 8 trend prediction boards that, in my opinion, were not up to the standard I would like them to be(they an be found here: http://textilecandy.blogspot.be/2015/11/premiere-vision-autumnwinter-2016-print.html).

This season, however, I anticipated the infuriating 'budget cuts' at work and how they might  inhibit my ability to go to Premiere Vision, and I booked 3 days holiday in advance. This actually worked out quite well as it meant I could visit the trade show representing myself and not a company and I actually got to see Paris. In fact, I am writing the draft version of this post while sitting in a quaint little cafe opposite the Notre Dame....it is bliss! I had forgotten how beautiful Paris actually is, normally when I visit for Premiere Vision I go straight from the eurostar at Gare du Nord, underground on the metro to Parc d'es Expositions and then back. On this trip I have been able to act like a real tourist and have visited Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur, La Tour Eiffel and Musee D'Orsay. It even started snowing when we were walking around the city on the second day, it was beautiful...a much needed break.  Here are a few quick snaps of my mini city break before I get started on the report:

I always find it quite interesting to see the display signage at Premiere Vision as it always hints at the trends they are predicting. Last year the signage consisted mainly of fruit, this year it was flowers.

Another thing I really liked about how everything was displayed for this season was the way the colour palette predictions had been hung as banners from the ceiling. Even if you didn't buy a colour tasting trend book/pay to visit the seminar, you could still get a solid feel for the Spring/Summer 2017 colour palette. From what I could see, it combined sugary pastels with warm camels and cinnamon tones and highlights of bright orange, green and white.

For Spring/Summer 2017, Premiere Vision presented 19 print trends. I have combined these to produce 15 print trend boards that I believe in, as always I have also edited some of the names.

On a whole, the hand drawn feel we have been seeing over the recent seasons seems set to continue but taking on less of a delicate linear outline form. Lines seem to be becoming heavier and more abstract; the arts and crafts style florals predicted for Autumn/Winter 2016 have moved into botanical illustration inspired florals; the oriental influence has been abandoned in favour of more Indian inspired designs and digital prints have almost been completely abandoned(which I honestly don't mind as the world is digital enough);quirky conversationals are also beginning to ease their way back in.

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Brushstroke florals are the colourful option for SS17. Reminiscent of the loose, painterly florals of the 1980's all are of a mid tooversized scale and have a free, hand painted feel.

Felt-tip florals are another colourful alternative, they feel almost like a move on from the AW16 trend prediction of unfinished florals. This trend seems to be inspired by the new fad of adult colouring books- flat colours and solid outlines with some areas incomplete.

For Spring there is nearly always a tropical trend and I am so glad that this time we are moving away from the standard palm tree imagery. Following the painterly tone set by the felt-tip and brushstroke florals, the tropical trend for SS17 also has a very loose hand painted feel. Premiere Vision has showed imagery which seems to be moving away from the palm/cheeseplant foliage in favour of more floral abstraction

Another floral related trend for Spring/Summer 2017 is the floral mosaic- the patchwork update. In the Spring/Summer 2016 catwalks (http://textilecandy.blogspot.be/2015/11/print-trends-springsummer-2016.html) we saw this at DVF, Mary Katrantzou, Etro and Jonathan Saunders, amongst many others. 

It seems that whenever there is an oversized, expressive floral trend(brushstroke florals) there is a tight and orderly counterpart- SS17 is no different. Micro-Bucolic is the new ditsy floral trend for Spring/Summer 2017. It seems to have been seeping back into the runway collections in recent seasons on the catwalks of Veronica Beard and Michael Kors(Autumn/Winter 2016). I'm not usually a huge fan of the mini-floral but it will definitely be interesting to see how designers put a new spin on this age-old trend.

In my Spring/Summer 2016 catwalk report I got quite excited about the new romanticism trend with all of the hand painted botanical illustration prints, I especially loved the yin and yang feel in the colour palettes as both dark and light botanicals were evident in most collections (http://textilecandy.blogspot.be/2015/11/print-trends-springsummer-2016.html). It was extremely reassuring to go to PV and see that they were promoting this trend, it's always nice to have the reassurance that your predictions are correct. The Premiere Vision trends entitled 'Darkly romantic' and 'Sugary romanticism' are the Spring/Summer 2017 predicitions of how the SS16 New romanticism trends will progress.

Sitting nicely alongside the lighter botanical trend of 'Sugary romanticism' is 'Indiana blooms'. In the Premiere Vision print area there were two trends entitled 'Indiana blooms' and 'Indonesian carvings', I felt that these had the same delicate floral aesthetic and so have combined them under one title. The inspiration for this trend is the 18th century Indian floral printed cottons known as chintz/toiles. This is actually a time period I'm extremely interested in and I might look into it in some more depth in a future blog post, but here is some more information just in case you're curious:  http://demodecouture.com/cotton/

From Indian to African, the Spring/Summer 2017 trend predictions included a trend called 'African fauna'. Moving away from the popular, and somewhat cliche, African mudcloth designs that fashionistas seem to love to talk about under the blanket term 'ethnic'(can you tell that I am somewhat irked by that haha), Premiere Vision showed a small range of loose, hand painted animal graphics and conversationals in earthy tones of deep brown, cinnamon and ochre. This trend was hinted at in both Valentino and Rochas SS16 collections, it is nice to finally see some conversational and placement prints making a comeback. 

'Aquatic life' is a trend prediction for Spring/Summer 2017 that will hardly come as a surprise to anyone who pays attention in the fashion world. Appearing in the SS16 collections of Emilio Pucci, Stella Jean, Tsumori Chisato and Gucci, aquatic scenes from fish to coral and scuba divers were all over the runway. It will be extremely interesting to see if this continues into the Autumn/Winter 2016 collections.

Conversationals are back, FINALLY. They seem to have been absent from the fashion scene for quite a few seasons.  As my current job involves designing conversational prints for men's shirts, finding inspiration for this in a conversational-less world has been tough. Most of the new prints for SS17 in this area revolve around scenes from daily life from washing line pegs, to bicycles. Fruit related prints were also popular, particularly when done in a watercolour paint effect.

Outline prints have been consistently popular for quite a few seasons now which makes me question the longevity left in this trend...still Premiere Vision has predicted it will continue for Spring/Summer 2017.  Lacking in colour(which is great for any commercial print designer limited to one screen) and with much finer lines than previously, this trend manages to be delicate and graphic at the same time. No matter how long this trend continues, it still looks fresh. I'm definitely going to be working into it a little and trying out this style on some conversational prints.

Scribbled hatchings was the only slightly geometric trend prediction for SS17. This trend was also predicted at Premiere Vision for SS16 (http://textilecandy.blogspot.be/2015/02/premiere-vision-springsummer-2016.html) but didn't seem to amount to anything, which is a shame as I actually quite like it. Hopefully the Autumn/Winter 2016 will start introducing these cross-hatch style prints as I do feel like the industry is missing a geometric edge to balance out all of the florals.

There were two trend predictions for Spring/Summer 2017 that I struggled with slightly, partly due of the trend titles but also because I don't feel like I necessarily agree with how they were presented. 'Primitive compositions' consisted of mark making tiles put together in a mismatched collage effect in the deep,rich colours we generally seem to associate with Africa. I love this idea and believe tiling will be a big print trend, it seems to be taking over instagram with style and travel bloggers using the #ihavethistingforfloors #ihavethisthingfortiles, but I have a really big problem with the word 'primitive'. Maybe it's a personal thing but I find it as dismissive as the blanket term 'ethnic'.

The second print prediction I had problems with was 'circular ornamentation'. I can completely understand the thinking behind this prediction as, with the increasing popularity of yoga and Indonesian travelling, social media has seen a rise in the popularity of Buddhism and the circular mandala designs that are associated with it , but I wasn't a fan of how this was presented at Premiere Vision. Instead I have combined these two trends to create a new board called 'global ornamentation'. This trend takes aspects of intricate mandala designs and combines them with more geometric mark making patchwork tiles to create a modern bohemian print trend. I actually think this might be my favourite trend of the entire bunch.

'Fused geometries' was the only slightly digital print trend at Premiere Vision for Spring/Summer 2017 and it reminded me a lot of the SS16 PV trend prediction of blurred visions (http://textilecandy.blogspot.be/2015/02/premiere-vision-springsummer-2016.html) although this one is less digital and more hand dyed.

I have renamed 'fused geometries' as 'inky glitch' as I don't really feel like there is anything geometric about this trend and they really remind me of a hand painted, watercolour/ink version of the computer glitch trend.

So there you have it- a whole set of 15 print trend predictions for Spring/Summer 2017 based on what I have seen at Premiere Vision. It would be great to get your feedback on these and let me know which ones you think will be successful/unsuccessful. 

Also, If anyone would like me to work into creating a more detailed trend pack for them please don't hesitate to contact me on here or on my new website: www.textilecandy.com.