"A lot of momentum from Europe has been about the suit", NYC-based Brit designer Simon Spurr stated, "which is good for me". He's right, on both counts. The sartorial took Europe by storm this season, and that's his stock-in-trade. He opened the show with a three-piece amounting to a statement of purpose. There were nods to his other enduring preoccupations, like militaria and Sixties swingerism, but these were flourishes. So was the play on bonding and lamination, which glossed outerwear and tricked out jackets. Even sweaters got bonded knit on knit, with thicker gauges glommed on fine. The result flirted with the bombastic -like the houndstooth motif blown up to cartoon proportions- but it felt more playful than serious. It didn't distort the fact that Simon Spurr makes suits and jackets, spread-collar shirts, and slacks. Good ones. Crisp tailoring : check. Daring patterns : check. Jewel tones : what ? The rigidly masculine silhouettes and refined suiting were back on display this season, but in some new hues. Oceanic blues, ruby reds and a softened brown dominated the designer's always English-inspired runway. In the event those shades surprise you, hang on for the last look, a time-tested three-piece in stark gray. For all the tweaks, that's a simple truth. So's the fact that, after splitting his label into high and low with Simon Spurr and Spurr lines these past few seasons, the designer has brought them together again under the aegis of Simon Spurr. This collection was all him, in name and in feeling. It may not have been a whole new tack, but as collections go, it's hard to complain about that. Which is not so bad at all.
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