Branded Male

Men loosen up

So, it's been a month since my last note, but at least I've got something interesting to share with you. This week I've been covering the men's shows in Paris for WGSN.com, so I've been able to cast an eye over the lastest trends in male attire. And if I had to sum it up, I'd say "baggy is back".

But I'll return to silhouettes later. When it comes to fashion I'm more interested in strategy than shapes, so it was enlightening to attend the Yves Saint Laurent presentation at the Musée de l'Homme. By "presentation", I mean that this was no standard catwalk show: designer Stefano Pilati had come up with seven giant video projections. I thought it was rather a civilised way of doing things, especially as waiters hovered around with cups of espresso and viennoiserie.

The Musée de l'Homme was the perfect site for a meditation on  what it means to be a man, with the videos expressing different interpretations of masculinity. The first, for example, showed a godlike figure, towering, bearded and static - dressed in white - surrounded by androgynous dancers who twisted and turned around him. Another video was a screen test: representing insecurity, or the way we "perform" our chosen personalities. Yet another film displayed our hero on a mountaintop, surveying the landscape. "A body is a landscape", the accompanying note explained. All the protagonists were played by the undeniably handsome Jack Huston, grandson of the great film director John Huston. And there was nobody more masculine than John Huston.

And the clothes? Shifting towards loose and comfortable, with nonchalant pyjama-style jackets, comfy drop-crotch trousers, and nautical double-breasted blazers. Exaggerated here, as in all fashion shows, but perfectly wearable when the look filters down to the mainstream.

The tight-versus-loose look was continued at the Kris Van Assche show, which had gyspy-meets-surfer overtones. I liked the general flowing, romantic look of the pieces, which may make for some smart but slouchy summer wear in the future. Those who invested in too many pairs of skinny jeans will now have to reconsider their wardrobes.

Dior and the Dandies

Last weekend I loaded up on magazines and made the four hour train journey from Paris to Granville, in Normandy. That's the location of the Musée Christian Dior, at the designer's family home. The place is less ostentatious than you might imagine, built in the stolid half-timbered Anglo-Norman style familiar on this part of the coast.

I was there for an exhibition called, to offer a rough translation, Dandyism: two centuries of dandies from Barbey d'Aurevilly to Christian Dior. Over two floors of portraits, accessories and clothing, it attempts to capture the essence of that elusive figure: the dandy.

The show kicks off with 19th century elegant Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly (right), who never recovered from his encounter with the original dandy, Beau Brummell, in nearby Caen. By then, Brummell was on the run from his debtors and crippled by syphilis, but that didn't prevent d'Aurevilly from idolising him - and becoming his biographer.

The book - Du Dandysme et de George Brummell - sparked a dandy craze in France, with everyone from aristocratic layabout Robert de Montesquiou (left) to respected writers Balzac and Baudelaire fretting about the correct way to knot a cravat or brandish a cane. They also  had some eccentric grooming habits: I was amused by a pot of Veritable Grasse d'Ours (Genuine Bear Grease), said to encourage hair growth and prevent discolouration. There was even a corset for men on show.

So was the dandy a metrosexual avant l'heure? It depends on your interpretation. The meaning of the word has been corrupted over the years. For Brummell, a dandy did not cry out to be noticed, but dressed with quiet perfection. Which brings me to my main criticism of the exhibition: when it enters the modern era, former Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane barely merits a mention. I know he left Dior under difficult circumstances, but the man who  reinvented the suit for the 21st century deserves more than a fleeting reference. Instead we're lumbered with an homage to John Galliano, who the last time I checked wore fancy dress rather than real clothing. And is in any case a designer of womenswear, and irrelevant here. He even manages to steal the thunder of the current Dior Homme designer, the underrated Kris Van Assche (pictured).

But this glaring omission does not spoil an otherwise enjoyable show, which enables us to gloat at Balzac's turquoise-studded cane, Oscar Wilde's dress shirt, and a smoking jacket once worn by David Bowie (although I'd have opted for Bryan Ferry as the ultimate 1970s dandy). There's also a cigarette case that belonged to Christian Dior himself. If a dandy knows one thing, it's how to accessorise.

The exhibition runs until September 21.