June 22nd 2011
Knit Tricks
Alright, Ive gotten over my gut-pit reaction towards dapper gentlemen in prim n proper attire at Pitti and have now sifted through my finds from the tradeshow. Besides the star-lit guest designer events, the Pitti Uomo tradeshow itself is a cornucopia-shaped haven for menswear bloggers to cream themselves over perfectly tuned tailoring, innovative Japanese shoes and devastatingly subtle details. For undiscerning me, I just go around going “Oooh… Steve would like that!” and “OMG…thats CUTE!”. No hard-hitting critique there. In other words, I know what I like and frankly most of the suited and booted formal looks that Pitti Uomo offers up arent really to my taste but amongst it all, there were a few gems that I picked out for both Steve (I was reporting for him as well as for myself…) and for myself.
It was almost too easy to love Monsieur Lacenaire. Its a knitwear label named after Pierre-Francois Lacenaire, the dastardly murderer and poet in the 19th century, that is only two seasons in with founder and designer Garance Broca having cut her knitting teeth at the likes of Hermes, Balmain and Joseph. Niche knitwear labels are in no shortage and I suppose the closest counterpart to Monsieur Lacenaire would be Londons very own Sibling given that theyre both loosely menswear knitwear labels which girls like to borrow from occasionally (though Sibling is now branching out to womenswear thanks to New Gen – YAY!). Monsieur Lacenaires designs are more of a subtle breed compared to Sibling as Broca is careful not to overstep the boundaries with her knitwear for men and of course notions of French chic linger in the background to keep things bounded by an unspoken code of conduct. For S/S 12, she plays with houndstooth patterns mixed with Space Invaders, never allowing the aliens to overtake the jumper, and thus turning it into a novelty arcade-game-buff jumper…
Plain alpaca wool styles fill out a collection that is in its core about high quality knits with a teens tiny touch of wit…
Plays on classics such as cricket/tennis jumpers or a knitted military jacket with a mixture of knit stitches worked in will make these a hit with both guys and gals…
…something that I suspect is the case with this knitted varsity bomber jacket from Monsieur Lacenaires A/W 11-12 debut collection which has been picked up by colette and Mr Porter to name a starry few. This breakout piece also features in their A/W 11-12 stop-motion video at the top of this post, which has already made the rounds around the menswear blog circuit and was the final stroke that made it all too easy to be charmed by what Monsieur Lacenaire are doing.
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