Vivienne Westwood and Creative Director Andreas Kronthaler envisioned a wondrous summer picnic while designing the latest Men’s Spring Summer 2013 collection. The inspiration came from Manet’s painting “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe” and was a send up of Westwood’s tongue and cheek humor featuring poet smocks, cardigans, school boy shorts, suspenders, and the iconic Union Jack on tops, loafers and even underwear with models donning floral head wreaths as an accent piece to strike the right note.
The collection began with a romantic white poet’s smock paired with slate gray cotton trousers which featured a tongue slit at the cropped bottom of each pant leg, and French Toile de Joie loafers. There were two and three piece suits made of silk, houndstooth, broadcloth, and a checkered country plaid perfect for a romantic afternoon outing in the country. The suits were worn with paper-bag high waisted trousers in checkered and gingham prints topped off by suspenders and gold insect jewelry pinned to the lapels giving off the essence of a handsome country gentleman.
The show’s ambiance drifted to a more playful mood as models donned casual pull-on pants, straw hats and bulbous bug brooches and necklaces. A cardigan worn over an bright melon shirt with brown trousers and lace up oxford shoes, appeared ideal for a game of golf. Another model sported a bi-color black and gold color-blocked English cardigan over striped shorts.
“We recycled the grass stain, when you sit on the grass or have sex on the grass or whatever,” said Westwood. It’s not a real picnic outing if you don’t lay in the grass and drink a little wine. A model wearing a white wine stained shirt and casual shorts displaying a game of Tic-tac-toe exemplified her sentiments exactly. This was followed by a grass stained white Safari jacket and khaki trousers which were right on trend.
“I can refer this collection to my campaign to save the earth, I mean my campaign states Westwood. Why isn’t it everybody’s campaign to save the earth? This is the point, we should all be campaigning.”
