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Givenchy: Out of Africa, Into the West

Part meditation on street style, part meeting of Africa and medieval Italy and split down the middle between razor-sharp tailoring and urban attitude, the latest collection from Givenchy confirms its designer, Riccardo Tisci, as one of the most important working in menswear today.

Shown Friday afternoon, June 26, in Paris, the Givenchy men’s collection for Spring 2010 began with a sharp-eyed lesson in how to create the modern gent’s wardrobe - surgically cut suits made of micro mesh jackets and exact officer pants that made for a jaunty opening.

Gradually, Tisci introduced graphics, bold black cutouts on white dress shirts and pants, or Moorish prints, where Marrakech dudes met Parisians dandies.

This is a designer with a deeply fertile imagination, so he can easily combine a Bronx biker in shorts silhouette with an off-duty medieval Tuscan soldier mood. While not that many men will wear gold sequined chain mail tops with cowls topped by baseball hats worn backwards, as an image it looked great.

And, surely the whole point of Givenchy is to cater to a high, avant-garde elite, who’ve got the guts and panache to wear clothes with gusto, like the brilliant all black dhoti jodhpurs and valet jacket with gold studded vest outfit that was a tough wear, but a great fashion statement.

Where colleagues in Milan and Paris have opted almost universally for a groomed, privately educated look for their models this season, Tisci sent out a savage casting – frequently behemoths compared to other designers' scrawny youths – and the show was all the better for it. Adding a does of celebrity, Madonna’s current boyfriend, Jesus Luz, strutted his stuff in a Moroccan top with gold embroidered, red tartan shirt tied around his waist.

Backed up by a great Frederic Sanchez show track of Atlas mountain drums and the theme music to “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" by Michael Nyman, this was a great, punchy romantic hit.

“African but also urban, tough chic but also sensual,” said Tisci backstage, wearing shorts, thick black knee socks and numeral logo T-shirt. “I have to support my own ideas by wearing them,” he said.

One also could not help admiring how elegant the Givenchy staff looked in Tisci’s clothes, all of them in black, whether in frilly blouses, austere leggings or exact military tunics.

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