“Quietly assured” was how Simon Holloway described his temper at a preview the day earlier than his second assortment for Dunhill, which unfolded in a Milanese backyard on Sunday afternoon. Entering into the groove of his position, which he has now been in for simply over a yr, the 52-year-old designer has pulled again from the fashion-forward route taken by his predecessor Mark Weston. As a substitute, Holloway’s Dunhill is about pursuing what he calls “radical classicism.”
“This assortment is mostly a kind of mirrored model of what we began with in fall, so it’s this quintessentially English wardrobe,” he mentioned. The designer explored Dunhill’s in depth archive, whose ready-to-wear origins lie in creating sports activities tailoring for when the automobile was invented and driving was nonetheless a luxurious pursuit, and so the gathering started with a deliciously expensive-looking unfold of butterscotch suede automobile coats and chocolate brown leather-based jackets. Then got here tropical wool tailoring the colour of clouds—sharply reduce however with breezy motion—charming tennis garb with leather-based racket circumstances, and eventually a set of tuxedos so immaculate that any of the fashions may have been shrunk down and convincingly plonked on prime of a marriage cake.
For Holloway, a Brit who labored for Virginie Viard at Chloé in Paris and as inventive director for Agnona in Milan, and did stints at Ralph Lauren and Hogan in New York, there’s a way that he feels very at dwelling within the unapologetic, James Bond-esque Englishness of Dunhill (one explicit element he was happy to indicate was a re-edition of a strolling cane with a gadget lighter hidden within the deal with). “For me, it’s very a lot about proudly owning British fashion and discovering enormous pleasure in that,” he mentioned.
The timing feels good for Dunhill; there’s a rising starvation in menswear for a return to elegant, basic clothes (with guidelines!) that chimes properly with Holloway’s skills. Erring on the facet of conventional, occasion-driven menswear with out veering into stuffy or dated territory isn’t straightforward, however Holloway has a knack for putting that steadiness. This assortment felt recent and cohesive, with a lightness that belied its rigor—and confirmed he’s the correct man for the job.
