Neil Barrett SS10: Beige and Blackest-of-Black.

I don’t think we’ve ever seen such a season so heavily reliant on beige and related shades of beige. How and ever, it is Milan and outré innovation wasn’t at the top of my checklist. Rather, I’ve enjoyed what’s to be seen so far for its inherent wearability. Unsurprisingly, then, the highlight of the past couple of days was, for me, Neil Barrett.

For a designer so enamoured of the slick rock aesthetic – think his almost liquid-looking black leathers and fondness for the skinny leg – SS10 marked a departure from the usual. The collection conformed in the sense that Barrett always seems to draw inspiration from an imagined hybrid of styles like ‘Amish Punk’ and last season’s ‘Abstract Eccentric’ and SS10 was undoubtedly the product of the fusion of two disparate elements, termed ‘Artisan Bonding’.

Structural trenches with double-lapels in various shades from desert beige to sandstone or in three shades, geometrically juxtaposed. As Tim Blanks has noted in his reviews the ‘exotic’ is certainly close to many a designer’s heart this season and Barrett’s no exception having created garments in a vaguely Indian wallpaper print.

But the Barrett fixation with black re-emerged and rightly so. I mean, does anyone do it better?

Images from Men’s Style