Dolce & Gabbana Menswear: Fall 2012.

I think this is the first menswear post I've made on Hello, Tailor, so let me begin with this obvious yet necessary disclaimer: menswear is different from womenswear. Due to the way our society views men "dressing up", menswear tends to be a lot less daring than womenswear. I guarantee that when Fall Fashion Week comes along, there will be multiple looks that will make you go, "What the hell is that?" and then think, "Well, I suppose Lady Gaga/Tilda Swinton/Beyonce will be wearing it by next month." During Menswear Fashion Week there will be some bizarre and wonderful outfits on the runway, make no mistake, but I highly doubt that you'll be seeing many of them on men in the public eye. There will always be people willing to spend a three-figure sum on designer t-shirts, but there's less pressure for menswear designers to explore much further than that. Happily, there will also be an awful lot of well-tailored suits, so you can expect to see a lot of suit pictures in the upcoming weeks.

photos from Style.com

Dolce & Gabbana is only the second show I've looked at this Menswear Fashion Week, but I'm already sure that it's still going to be one of my favourites come the end of the season. D&G have expertly trod the line between traditional suits and eye-catching runway fashion, ending up with something that mixes unexpected fabric choices, three-piece formal suits (always a winner), and old-fashioned luxury without often straying into the territory of over-the-top opulence.

My love of richly-embroidered fabrics meant that I was biased towards this collection almost immediately. The show itself was steeped in heavy-handed operatic melodrama, with the models walking to Pavarotti along a darkened runway with red and gold antique furniture in the background (footage here). A great deal of typical D&G trad menswear followed (not pictured here because there were 76 looks in this show and I'm not wasting space on the ~20 near-identical black tuxedos included therein), occasionally modified with Italian opera capes, or Tistera.

After I saw BBC Sherlock's "A Scandal In Belgravia" I reread the original Holmes short story "A Scandal In Bohemia", meaning that the description of the King of Bohemia was fresh in my mind when I saw this collection today. "His dress was rich with a richness which would, in England, be looked upon as bad taste." "...impression of barbaric opulence..." and so forth. The heavy coats and capes over dark three-piece harkened back to late 19th/early 20th century formalwear, although definitely more European than British.

Trousers aren't a typical place to find brocade, and although I think the jacket pictured below went a little too far on the embroidery and decoration stakes, I love the steady creep of curlicues up this model's legs, like the growth of some type of coral or ice-crystal.

The heavy fabrics were a particular delight for me, since they'd been purposely weathered to avoid being too bright, giving the appearance of an antique. Although I wouldn't classify this show as remotely steampunk, I'm sure it'll find many fans in the steampunk community. When it comes to dressing up, you often have to go back to the early 20th century and beyond for menswear inspiration, since so many trends in the latter half of the 20th century are not easily mined for wearable menswear looks (cf. DISCO). Unlike womenswear designers, who dig up the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s ad infinitum.

I particularly liked this next look (and the sweater + embroidered cape pictured earlier) since it neatly combines different eras without seeming jarringly retro. Ignoring the poorly-tailored trousers for a moment, the shape of the sweater is very trendy and new while the embroidery could easily come from some minor Russian royal's home furnishings circa 1850. And then the gold-studded shoes are perfectly modern as well. (I've been racking my brain to remember where this type of stiff, wide, half-length sleeves come from -- I thought somewhere in the Himalayas but Google has not been forthcoming in this regard.)

There were several pajama outfits in the collection, complete with slippers. Or at least, I hope they were intended to be pajamas because the collar certainly suggests that, never mind that they were all worn with a jacket over the top. The fabric choices, once again, were excellent.

Among the more directly modern-looking outfits was this knitted ensemble, which included those irritatingly unflattering drop-crotch trousers that are so fashionable right now. One thing I will say in favour of this pair is that they look admirably warm. If you've read any of my Fall or Pre-Fall womenswear reviews you'll know that I have a persistant bugbear when it comes to outfits that are supposed to be worn in London, Paris, or NYC in November, yet include bare legs and a tiny jacket made from lace. I suspect that this is down to the high-end fashion world's dismally archaic view of what men and women "should" look like -- ie, it's a rare day that you see a menswear collection that highlights the delicate and fragile aspects of its wearer's appearance, or a womenswear collection that tries to make the models look strong and bulky.

The shoes in this show were a particular treat for me. They went from trendy to formal to artfully distressed, plus many of them would go with a wide variety of outfits. The neverending queues of tuxedos we see on the red carpet would be significantly more interesting if their wearers threw in some gold-embroidered shoes now and then. And I loved the urban neo-antique appearance of sock/show combos such as this:

I would wear this like a shot.

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The most important thing about BBC Sherlock's "A Scandal In Belgravia".

I love Sherlock Holmes. Not just the new adaptations where Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law slap-fight in 14 layers of tweed and drive a steampunk rocketship into Benjamin Disraeli (or whatever pseudo-Victorian thing it is this year). Those movies are great and everything, but I also like to read the books. In fact, once I made a timeline bookmark for my Complete Sherlock Holmes so I could read them in chronological order from "GLOR: 1875" (The Adventure Of The Gloria Scott) to "LAST: 1914" (His Last Bow). Simply put, the reason why there's less plot/characterisation analysis than usual in this post is because if I started I wouldn't be able to stop. I'd just hulk out into an ultimate Sherlock nerd and start word-vomiting a treatise on why Mycroft's cigarette choices indicate that he and Sherlock were neglected as children.

Photo from one of GQ's many articles about Sherlock's (apparently) endlessly fascinating coat.

The costumes of Sherlock are, to be honest, not hugely exciting. In the first series they establish Sherlock Holmes in a uniform of dark, expensive designer menswear, and John Watson in a selection of porridge-coloured jumpers and dumpy cardigans apparently chosen to make him look as nondescript as possible. You could probably knit John and Sarah Lund from The Killing together into some kind of BBC crime-drama knitwear Megazord.

Because of the way Sherlock works, there's not much hidden meaning in any of the costumes. Everything important will be deduced by Sherlock right there onscreen anyway, so whilen in another show there might be some subtextual characterisation hint hidden in a character's dress-sense, in Sherlock you get a direct explanation from the protagonist as to why someone's cufflinks prove them to be an adulterer. Which isn't to say that I dislike the costumes -- what's not to love about Sherlock's wardrobe of skin-tight D&G shirts and his deliciously swoopy, red-buttonholed greatcoat? -- but there's not much depth to plumb.

A Scandal In Belgravia: the great wallpaper conspiracy. (Oh yeah.)

Sherlock: starring Mark Gatiss, Bilbo Baggins, pantsless Benedict Cumberbatch, and a lot of upholstery patterns.

A Scandal In Belgravia = 90 minutes of pure glee, give or take a few moments of "WTFeminism, Steven Moffat?" Right now reviewers and participants in internet fandom appear to be locked in an ouroboros-like debate over whether Irene Adler makes sense as a character in a 21st century context and whether or not the showrunners really meant to imply feelings of attraction between an asexual man and a woman who self-identifies as gay. However, having spent several days mulling that over, I've now moved onto the real focus of the show: WALLPAPER.

This promo picture is spot-on. Sherlock looking creepy and narrow-eyed; John looking harmless and wry and dressing like somebody's grandpa; the yellow spray-paint smiley lurking behind Sherlock like the devil on his shoulder. BUT CHECK IT OUT: Wallpaperrrrrr. I know very little about interior decoration but I still think that's some awesome wallpaper. The camera people over at BBC Sherlock love them some twirly curlicue patterns, it seems.

Apparently Irene Adler and Sherlock have quite similar taste in interior decoration. I suspect this wallpaper was chosen because it looks stylish and chic while still retaining that whole busy Victorian aesthetic found in British houses of the original Sherlock Holmes period. Patterned carpets and walls and throw-cushions and horrible little paintings of flowers galore. They occasinoally do that with other things in Sherlock, in fact -- neat little Victorian throwbacks like Sherlock's timeless greatcoat and Irene Adler's bouffant hair. And Mrs Hudson's awesomely Victoriana-esque high-collared blouses:

OMG, I just noticed: Is Mrs Hudson's shirt-pattern part of the WALLPAPER CONSPIRACY as well?

In Irene Adler's promotional photoshoot they had her practically making out with the wallpaper. Even Mycroft was photographed in front of it, even though I don't think he ever steps into Irene's house. THE WALLPAPER IS JUST THAT IMPORTANT.

Irene/Wallpaper. DO YOU SHIP IT?

I'm pretty sure that the design is by Timorous Beasties, a Glaswegian wallpaper/textile design partnership who make all sorts of slightly weird-looking riffs on classic Victorian pattern work -- the only interior design company I can name, actually, for no reason other than because I live in Glasgow and have walked past their HQ like three times in the past week. I took a gander at their website and Irene's flat seems to be papered in Devil Damask (£228 per roll to you, mate). Timorous Beasties are ideal for Sherlock since they purposefully play off the look of fussy Victorian interiors but add darkness and modernity to their designs by incorporating images like bugs and decaying Glaswegian tower-blocks into the patterns.

Elsewhere in Irene's melodramatic yet stylish boudoir we have matching curtains:

 ...And Irene looking magnificently retro-burlesque in some sort of early-20th-century-style peignoir in Slytherin green. Irene looked absolutely stunning throughout the episode, although it does of course help when one has a flawless figure and an unlimited clothing budget (ie, much like Sherlock himself). If only the one female antagonist/main character we're likely to see in BBC-Sherlock wasn't a Sexy Dominatrix, no matter how well she was written compared to most of television's other Sexy Dominatrix characters. It just makes me think of Kate Beaton's Strong Female Characters cartoons.

The downstairs of Irene's hopelessly palacial London house is done up in gold paper of a similar but slightly more conventional style. Meanwhile, Sherlock is wrapped in another one of his sprayed-on tailored skinny shirts:

Draw your own conclusions, Internet. What is the meaning of the Great Wallpaper Conspiracy? Is it merely that the person who does set design for BBC Sherlock has a share in Timorous Beasties? Is it a throwback to the Victorian aesthetic? Or have you, like me, stopped thinking about Sherlock and started thinking about how awesome it is when clothes look like upholstery? Hmm, I wonder whether I should try and find some Sherlock-esque wallpaper print for my next pair of Shakespearean knee-breeches... after all, one can never have too many. 

Try not to hate me too much for making you notice the wallpaper next time you watch Sherlock. (pic from here.)

Finally: The makers of Sherlock were evidently so keen to get their money's worth out of Irene Adler's boudoir wallpaper that they even included it in the background of her website:

THE PLOT THICKENS. Also, that website is kinda tacky. (pic from here.)

Postscript: I may be quite a big Holmes fan, but compared to some Sherlockians I'm barely dipping my toe in the water. For example, I just came across this mind-bogglingly exhaustive Tumblr dedicated to sourcing every prop and costume from BBC Sherlock, from hand lotion to nicotine patches to Mycroft Holmes' umbrella to... wallpaper. They haven't managed to track down much stuff from A Scandal In Belgravia yet, but I have every confidence that if anyone can do the legwork to uncover the rest of the Great Wallpaper Mystery of 2012, it's them. Wow.

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