Menswear hits a comfort zone in Milan

(ANSA) - Milan, January 21 - Menswear next fall beats a hasty retreat from urban landscapes to a comfort zone of solid staples, with nature serving as inspiration to a number of collections presented during Milan fashion week January 17-20.
    The fall-winter 2015 men's wear shows that wrapped up on Tuesday went straight back to the roots of mannish elegance - literally - with leaves and earth paving runways fit to romanticize the core essence of rural life.
    Chunky knits worn over comfortably loose pants, trusty shoes, and oversized coats and scarves took center stage amid collections that strove for a balance between classic and casual wear - a brand of elegance neither rugged nor overly contrived.
    The four-day men's wear fashion week saw five runways - Corneliani, Etro, Fendi, Ferragamo and Zegna - paved with soil and leaves.
    Dirt-floor runways inspired, among others, folk-art pieces donned by soldiers at Ferragamo, preppy elegance at Fendi and Zegna designer Stefano Pilati's "uniforms for eco-leaders".
    Rural life was the backdrop for Etro's trademark mix of Italian finery and ethnicity, seen in a collection rich in corduroys and velvets, and in Corneliani's refined take on a season staple - outerwear - with long double-breasted coats. A quiet revolution of taste was in the air well before this fashion week. Over the past couple of seasons a new style named normcore and characterized by a self-aware blandness has been expressing a newfound appreciation for the things that last, as against the evanescence of fads.
    This desire to eschew the transitory for the essential was also seen in the celebration of family, with grandmothers and grandchildren strutting down the Dolce&Gabbana catwalk. Meanwhile Armani, Gucci and Prada sent both male and female models down their runways in praise of gender harmony, while never straying too far into the women's camp.
    "A man needs courage, but he has limits," said Ermanno Scervino, whose take on sartorial elegance for next fall included checked outerwear and duffle coats.
    Gucci also used the juxtaposition between men and women's wear in a collection designed by Alessandro Michele in less than a week after Frida Giannini, the label's creative director since 2006, was abruptly asked to leave.
    Giannini was originally meant to step down along with life partner and Gucci CEO Patrizio di Marco after the men's and women's shows.
    Michele - Giannini's former deputy and chief accessories designer as well as a possible successor - debuted with a collection that was a stark break from the past.
    He mixed masculine and feminine elements to create a younger, edgier take on the polished celebrations of icons from the past that marked Giannini's style.
    Giorgio Armani also toyed with the similarities between men and women's wear in a collection that experimented with silhouettes - like cropped pants and a hybrid of blazer and blouson.
    The extreme softness of the clothes was designed to suit everyday life while striving for the essence of male beauty in a reflection on the "new classic" that is Armani's trademark style.
    Indeed, the deacon of Italian fashion revealed a passion for British hit television series Downton Abbey - he chose the soundtrack of this saga about a British aristocratic family for his show.
    Yet he remained a master expounder of modernity, as seen in his eveningwear, where traditional smoking jackets were jazzed up, for example, with leather pants, without the mandatory bow tie.
    Armani's man had his feet firmly planted on the ground within chunky shoes, and donned accessories such as backpacks designed to take him from town to country and back.
    It is no coincidence the designer mixed the colors of the earth - lush dark greens and rich browns - with the grey of concrete and stone, a reminder of his perpetual love affair with the city of Milan.