Halpern worn by Linnéa

The nightclub, the hip destination, the dressing up and looking like you mean it. Halpern, the new brand designed by the Central Saint Martins educated native New Yorker Michael Halpern is all about glamour and opulence, colour and sparkle. And to be fair, what do you wear on a fun night out, if not something sequinned?

Still, it’s in your home that you get ready, where you put the out t on and perfect those dance moves. It’s where the transformation from homebody to night y takes place, a transition best made in the company of friends and with a drink at hand. Just remember to put two drops of champagne on your neck before you go out. One for luck, and one for love. (DB)

Ports 1961 worn by Coco Zodiac

The idea of the global citizen isn’t particularly new in fashion: just think of the timeline from mono- grammed Goyard luggage to K-pop celebrities and their airport looks. It’s simple. The international jetset have plenty of money, and they’re likely to spend it on dressing well all around the world. Plus, the workers of the fashion industry are a well- travelled bunch. Look at Ports 1961: an Italian-headquartered house with roots in Canada and China, and a Slovenian-Croatian creative director in Natasa Cagalj, overseeing an international team, most of whom trained in London. Curious, then, that for A / W 2017 the brand would turn its attentions to the idea of home.

“London is our home, and also the place where we all met, and where most of us studied,” Cagalj says. “The energy of London is what gives us identity.” For this collection, that translated into texture, comfort and body, in wide- legged trousers, as well as the brand’s signature shirting. Home as something tactile and comfortable, especially in the face of growing uncertainty around the world.

“We live in challenging times, and the idea of home seemed a natural and instinctive reaction to that,” says Cagalj. “Home is where we feel safe, protected, relaxed and comfortable.” (AK)

Lemaire worn by Saint

The skill in what Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran do lies in making clothes that feel luxurious without looking ostentatious. During an age when more is more, less can sometimes have a hard time making itself heard. But listen care- fully: in the subtle proportions and careful silhouette of a djellaba- inspired shirt and a pair of perfectly high-waisted trousers, you will find a rarefied kind of sophisti- cation. (AK)

Marc Jacobs worn by Tawyy

For his A / W 2017 collection, Marc Jacobs took a trip down memory lane to the early 1990s, to New York and the impact of hip-hop on modern culture – the foundation of what we now call street style. Vibes of a young Lauryn Hill when she was part of Fugees and, more than anything, the feel and pulse of the street. This was a throwback to a time when fashion fundamentally changed; when, all of a sudden, it wasn’t about salons and lunches any more. The collection was shown without any soundtrack or elaborate set, and proved that ideas of realness and relevance are as powerful today as they were back then. (DB)

Atlein worn by AmberValent

Antonin Tron took his own athletic lifestyle as a starting point for the body-conscious designs of Atlein’s A / W 2017 collection. “Being an active person myself, I tend to feel for an athletic and healthy gure,” the Paris designer explains. “Sur ng is, by far, my favourite thing in the world. It’s a mystical experience every time, even though I’m not really good at it. Driven by the quest of the wave, you become one with the ocean. It is very powerful and over- whelming.” Boxing, yoga and pranayama breathing also ll Tron’s busy days, and the in uence of all
this physical activity is visible in his latest collection, in which the clothes are well structured, yet still uid and pliant on the body.

The key to this lies in jersey, Tron’s fabric of choice. It’s a fabric that has undergone a lot of change, since Coco Chanel’s pioneering appropriation of it remade it into a luxury staple. Fast-forward 100 years, and you have a new devotee bringing structure and sophisti- cation to the material. “You have to start somewhere, when you create a brand,” says Tron, who has worked at many of Paris’s top fashion labels.

“The best is being specific on something you might be good at. I have always loved jersey, and worked with it a lot in the di erent houses I have worked for. What I love about it is its properties of diversity, uidity and elasticity.” (AK)

Acne Studios worn by Aron McFaul

Office wear is now in such ux that the casual Friday ethos has spread to the whole week. We’ve sure come a long way since the Gordon Gekko era of pinstripe suits, even though they are still de rigueur in some quarters. For A / W 2017, Acne Studios took traditional business attire and made it oddball, cuddly and some- whatsporty–like this suit, in alpaca. We demand to see it on Wall Street. (DB)

Louis Vuitton worn by Busu

Louis Vuitton is a brand that always seems to be on a journey, especially when you look at its menswear, helmed by Kim Jones. He is so well travelled that everyone wonders if there is anywhere he hasn’t been. We’ve come to expect exotic locations as the inspiration for his collections, so it was almost a bit of a shock to learn that it was the urban landscape, the city, and the uptown-downtown social mix characterising New York in the 1970s and 1980s that formed the basis for Louis Vuitton’s menswear this season. It seems to be about another journey, perhaps, one that’s less about borders and more about class. (DB)

Toga worn by Sissel Wincent

There’s more to life than tidiness and order. Even the neatest neat freak knows this. So does Yasuko Furuta, whose autumn collection for Toga eschewed perfection, o ering, instead, curious layering and o beat shift dresses. But this isn’t about chaos, disorder or too much mess piling up. See the hole in the side of this dress, the brooches that seem to be attached almost as an afterthought? This is more about embracing life’s imperfections, and nding – or creating – harmony in whatever may arise.(AK)

Lazoschmidl worn by Holy

“Tight clothes and hot guys.” That’s how Josef Lazo and Andreas Schmidl described their sexy collection after showing in Stockholm. But there’s so much more to this new Swedish- German brand: a deep knowledge of a queer culture where names like Peter Berlin are more important than Lady Gaga, and a whatever attitude to gender distinctions (Lazoschmidl have said they make “menswear and gender-neutral clothes”). The latest collection mixes Britney Spears metallic tops with slinky shirts and vinyl trousers. Velvet & Cream, they called it. It sounds just the way it looks: like sex. (DB)

Prada worn by Alton

To say that we, in 2017, have a desire for reality, for humanity and simpleness – as Miuccia Prada did after her menswear show for this season – is to see these things as a revolutionary antidote to the increasing unreality of world politics and contemporary culture. You can’t stop the future, people keep telling us. Maybe it isn’t about that, but rather about carving out a space for something else. The analogue, the simple, the real, they all become tools of resistance, and ways to ground yourself. (DB)

Saint Laurent worn by Kiki

Isn’t this the way many of us rst come to fashion? Trying on things that don’t belong to us, looking for the pure pleasure that comes with dressing up? It’s only after extensive trial and error that we come to learn what really lets us feel at home in our bodies. For some, the shortest of minidresses and the highest boots by Anthony Vaccarello at Saint Laurent bring a freedom and joy that could rede ne what it means to play dress-up. (AK)

Dilara Findikoglu worn by AMKosman

20 years ago, Alexander McQueen told a Time Out interviewer: “I don’t want to do a cocktail party; I’d rather people left my shows and vomited. I prefer extreme reactions.” With all that’s been changing recently on London’s fashion scene – the breadth of foreign wealth, the emergence of super- brands – a vacancy has arisen for a new provocateur. Someone to elicit the kind of reactions McQueen chased in the late 1990s.

Here’s where Dilara Findikoglu has found her niche. The designer, who grew up in Istanbul and grad- uated from Central Saint Martins in 2015, is becoming the capital’s go-to for strange contemporary gothica that ri s on parties, politics and feminism. She described this collection as post-apocalyptic, reflecting the concerns of many about our changing world, and occupying an imagined time “after war and before peace”. Symbols are subverted and, in Findikoglu’s context, their familiarity becomes sinister. “There are a lot of political problems at the moment, and everyone tends to say, ‘Oh, I just want it to end.’ So I wanted to go to that near-future where everything ends. There’s nothing happening there, because we can’t really see the future and, even if we did get over all those problems, there would de nitely be more problems to go through. That’s the balance of life.”

This is not strictly standard fodder for a fashion designer in 2017, but that doesn’t put Findikoglu o . She isn’t exactly a standard fashion designer in 2017. “I’m not a fashionista. I don’t feel like fashion is my world. Since the beginning, I’ve been trying to do something a bit di erent, put out di erent ideas that loads of fashion designers don’t really think about and don’t bring to their work. Obviously, every day [we are] evolving and changing a little bit, but I don’t want to lose that aim, you know. I don’t want to end up, one day, doing fashion for fashion’s sake. I think it’s a bit bland and super cial.” (AK)

Gucci worn by Gabriel Gassi

There’s something perverse in Gucci’s dark leather coat, worn here over felt trousers and lace-up boots. But maybe pretending that the perverse is, in fact, ordinary is part of this look’s allure. The coat’s wipe- clean finish conjures images of American Psycho’s two-faced psychopath Patrick Bateman, yet it’s the lace collar of the shirt worn underneath that adds a really lurid charm. Leather and lace, as Stevie Nicks and Don Henley pointed out, can make for a jarring contrast but, in the post-everything world of Gucci’s current incarnation, jarring contrasts might just be the new normal. (AK)

Maison Margiela horn by Ishi Vu

Picture the scene. A Sunday afternoon, and you’re curled comfortably on the couch. What are you wearing? It’s an extremely cosy jumper, of course, long enough to pull over your hands and block out any draught. But streetwear has made us look again at the inter- section of cool and comfort, and the rest of fashion has followed suit. Pairing this white sweater with co- ordinating tracksuit bottoms makes for an appealing combination, and one that can help answer the question of what the modern man wants from his wardrobe: a certain cool, yes, but a certain comfort, too. (AK)

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Photography Lars Brønseth | New Blood

Styling Martin Persson | Lundlund

Hair Susanne Lichtenegger

Make up Miika Kemppainen | Mikas Looks

Casting Ohlogy

Photography assistants Oliver Bampfylde, Mehran Pakgohar

Styling assistant Robin Westling

Post-production Studio Private