MAN was always going to be the pièce de résistance of London Fashion Week’s properly established menswear day and certainly showed a diversity in design aesthetic that along with the menswear installations and other shows of the day, really highlighted the amount of burgeoning talent in London menswear. Each designer on show also happens to be in a different phase of their design careers and this definitely contributed to the diversity.

Newcomer Katie Eary was first up and from last season’s Animal Farm, she looked at other seminal texts; William Burroughs’ Junky and Naked Lunch and served up a visceral look at the human body, dissecting body parts that translated into frayed denim, heart and eye prints, gold pigskin over sunglasses, gold bone and pearl ribcages, blood-red rope shoulderpieces and leather jackets in bruised leather. It was collection that went a level further from her last pig army collection, exploring even more materials and also ensured that her MAN debut was one to remember.

J.W. Anderson, went for something far more sleek and refined than his previous collections, perhaps in eagerness to demonstrate his maturity as a designer. Whilst thematically speaking, there were African tribal influences, the garments themselves were kept reined in, by being largely monochrome and form-fitting with flashes of electric blue, which were embellished with stacked bangles, fez hats and beaded fringe skirts.

Another MAN regular Christopher Shannon continued to hone in on his sporty/street aesthetic and with collaborations with Eastpak and Reebok on show, his collection of strikingly colour blocked ski-influenced separates would make sense to anybody looking for sportswear with a difference. The spray-tanned Scally joke fortunately did not detract too much from clothes.

Finally Topman went surprisingly minimal and dark for S/S 10 as they fused sharp tailoring with elements of sportswear for a slimline silhouette that referenced the 90s (bumbags and bomber jackets galore).

Music by Adored

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