“You can embrace somebody in a platonic sense, but you can also embrace somebody in a romantic sense. And I think this collection really looked at the lines between the two.” Saul Nash spoke immediately after his show this afternoon at Teatro Principe, a space that in its long history has been a boxing gym, a nightclub, and, back in the 1950s, a regular fashion venue. This was Nash’s second show in Milan, and the collection suggested that he is embracing some of the codes of Italian menswear. His hooded shirting was matched with a tie and pants in a zingily Mediterranean lemon yellow, and silky cupro pants and an overdyed nylon jacket were delivered in a punchy tone of lavender—both classic sartorial peacock shades.
That yellow look came with a stretch cummerbund printed with two hands outstretched towards each other. As they made their convoluted, choreographed way down the catwalk, Nash’s models would occasionally pause in a spotlight to embrace. Said Nash: “I really love this idea of questioning how far men will go. I go clubbing a lot. And I think in the clubs, there’s a lot of tension where, you know, people are expressing themselves.”
Diagonal openings on cupro shirts and stretch T-shirts were left unbuttoned to show pectorals and nipples. Trousers and pocket tags were draped with lines of miracle beads that become vividly reflective when the lights of the club hit them. The designer’s signature compression tops in recycled lycra came printed with the same beckoning hands, and the garments’ fitted design was in itself a close embrace of the bodies beneath.
The hooded three-quarter length check shirt, the opening hooded tailored striped jacket with zippered openings at the shoulder, and some finely pleated shorts and pants in more silkily-surfaced sustainable materials were examples of Nash’s ongoing efforts to generate an embrace between tailoring and technicality. Increasingly, it’s a combination with real chemistry.