For menswear, the beginning of the new decade has announced itself with fresh new perspective. No longer is it as concerned with the skinny/slim silhouette so firmly established by the 2000′s. The A/W 10-11 collections saw many influential designers embrace softness, fluidity and volume as the way forward: Rick Owens, Kris van Assche for both his eponymous line and at Dior, Stefano Pilati for Yves Saint Laurent, Lanvin, and Damir Doma.

One of seeds for this shift were planted by several seasons earlier by Kris van Assche’s debut collection for Dior Homme (S/S 08), at the time one of the most critically lauded and watched menswear labels. Kris unveiled a series of multi pleated, volumnous trousers that signaled a move away from the super slim look the house was famous for. That same season, Lanvin were continuing their experiments with fabrications to achieve a kind of floaty weightlessness, and Stefano Pilati presented oversized, unstructured jackets and coats. It would take a few seasons before these proposals would begin to resonate, but now there are more than a few designers who work within this vernacular, of which Rick Owens seems to be the most captivating.

His A/W 10-11 show achieved a perfect balance between strictness and softness as seen in the very first first look.He is no stranger to soft dressing, having nearly invented it for women at the beginning of the previous decade. But this mens show was an exceptional presentation of how to make this look work for men. Although Rick Owens is rightfully seen as a highly influential women’s designer, his contributions to menswear should not be underestimated.

Lanvin and YSL used different approaches towards soft tailoring: the former by accentuating shoulder, the latter by accentuating the waist. Albert Albaz and Lucas Ossendrijver removed the padding and dropped the shoulder line in their jackets which gave them the look of a soft cardigan, whilst Stefano Pilati removed the structure from his tailored jackets so that a matching scarf could serve as a belt.

S/S 10 saw Kris van Assche send out a series of fluid garments in black, grey and white for Dior Homme, of which some of the jacket lapels were like scarves; billowy and without structure. They were layered over his now usual full pleated pants. And, for his own collection, the introduction of the djellaba as a crucial layering piece, was yet more evidence of mens fashion moving towards a loose volume.

And finally, one of the pioneers of this movement is Damir Doma. He has been quietly working with the idea of garments that “caress the body” instead of hugging it for at least 6 seasons. His A/W 10-11 collection was a triumph of pure design where the quest to find a new menswear vocabulary by eliminating such details as lapels and buttons was expertly achieved. Nearly all his tailored pieces
are devoid of any structure and, in S/S 10, a transparency was introduced. It will be very interesting to see how this new talent develops.