While yes, you want to be comfortable and may even make significant strides to arrange your life to accommodate for the worldly individual you are, there's a flip side. That lesser experienced side has you, when faced with traveling long distances and desiring some much needed R &R, daring to not take that extra moisturizing this or extra button-down that. There's something about traveling or stepping outside of our normal routine that makes us realize just how exhausting our daily schticks can be at times. This I feel is that challenge many menswear designers face. How to speak to the man who knows what its like to have a lot but wants to (or at least look like he wants to) have less, but arrive no less dapper to the affair.
This has been one of the cool conundrums for the menswear industry that focuses on fabric, cut and versatility rather than the trend, fashion and, dare I say decoration, that is a lot of womenswear. I applaud the designers that approach with more design aesthetic than merchandising reliance. After all, do we need the same polo or cargo short in the exact same fabric only slightly more lagoon green or Montauk tan this season? Thankfully designers like Sergio Davila design.
By design I don't necessarily mean a proverbial reinvention of the wheel every season. However, I do mean that he is one designer that takes art & design and couples it with merchandising & modernity and slowly pours all that over his informed idea of a modern cosmopolitan man. Sergio Davila's Spring/Summer 2016 Mens Collection was a nicely edited handsome romp through influences from imagery of his homeland Peru to the Ivy League shapes that have defined American sportswear.
The collection Mr. Davila showed on an oasis escape themed rooftop with the Metropolis in the backdrop was fitting for the streamlined & fluid shapes and sun-kissed earth-tones & pastels all with a modern tailored edge. His trousers fell just to the right hems and fit well and the cut on his double breasted blazers just seemed to have an unstuffy and approachable casual elegance. There was a purposeful versatility to his outerwear in the active proportions without all the active bells and whistles. My favorite of which was a translucent hooded windbreaker that served as the perfect little all weather topper without being gimmicky or unwearable. As always Davila served up homages to his Peruvian roots. The tropical prints emblazoned upon the fronts of polo shirts, and pullovers gave a man just enough 'under-the-equator' nods without looking ready for a Sergio Mendes album cover.
I could've packed much of the collection for my trips this summer but alas, it seems I will have to wait until next spring. This does however give me plenty of time to plan where I'll be unpacking my carefully edited, handsomely executed ensemble. Perhaps Fukuoka, perhaps Lima.
