Milan Fashion Week always delivers big on fashion fantasy. So it takes a confident designer to eschew the bold, bombastic and bizarre and instead let the drape of a satisfyingly heavy silk midi dress or the slightly dropped shoulder of a bonded cotton safari jacket speak for themselves.
BOSS’s chief brand officer Ingo Wilts is one such designer. SS20 marks a seminal season for the German brand, which decamped from New York Fashion Week – where the womenswear line has been shown for the last 10 seasons – to Milan.
Despite the relocation, however, a New York state of mind continues to pervade the womenswear and menswear offerings primarily in the crisp, clean designs which owe much to the minimal ease of American sportswear. Unsurprisingly, tailoring is as excellent as ever with two key silhouettes ruling: long-line, loose blazers with slim trousers, or cropped jackets designed to be worn with a wider, more relaxed pant. ‘I want to give the woman new ideas of tailoring,’ Wilts explained backstage before the Sunday morning show.
Those new ideas involved exploring the ‘casualisation’ of our wardrobes. ‘But in a more tailored way, which is right for Boss,’ he qualified. So, a hoodie is slipped underneath a sleek jacket and generous, throw-on-and-go coat comes in a luxurious bonded sky blue leather.
This quiet sense of contrast continues throughout the collection. Peppy primaries, including a soft yellow inspired by the rising sun bouncing off New York skyscrapers (an upshot of jetlag, quipped Wilts), are mixed with expensive looking neutrals. Accessories add just the right amount of playfulness to classic looks (I’d strongly urge you to take note of BOSS’s excellent eyewear collection).
Pieces are designed to be mixed and matched, a move which plays into Wilts’ ambitions for this collection – which has been named BOSS Individuals – namely to embrace personal style. Wilts doesn’t like telling his customer how they should wear something. He does however, know how he wants them to feel. ‘She should feel luxurious, elegant but also kind of sexy,’ he explained – it hardly needs adding that in none of these ways does he mean obviously so.
He also knows that the BOSS woman is smart, self-aware and as confident as he is. So, the pieces in this collection are designed to feel relevant not just now but next year, the following year, and so on. ‘Our collection should be timeless,’ explained Wilts That should appeal to the conscious shopper, who is increasingly happy to eschew headlining trends for building a forever wardrobe. At a time when fashion is taking sustainability seriously – that is a pertinent message to take away.
