The day kicked off with a spectacular from Dolce and Gabbana—fitting for the house’s twentieth year doing menswear. Every male super model to ever walk tromped down the runway in lightweight wight linen suits, woven leather jackets, gauzy tops, and padded and ribbed woolen swim trunks. And to top it all off, the live soundtrack was provided by the amazing Annie Lennox who sat at the foot of the runway at a grand piano.

At Calvin Klein Collection, Italo Zucchelli showed a variety of slick and cleanly tailored suits in innovative, modern fabrics. The collection was punctuated by pieces in vibrant hues of blue, as well as by cropped t-shirts. The cropped T’s almost seemed incongruent with the rest of the collection’s sharp forms, except in the way they emphasized the torso, as if encapsulated by a shell. And of course VMAN was glad to see a few of our model search winners walking.

Christopher Bailey’s collection for Burberry honed in on two of the storied house’s current strengths: rock ‘n’ roll and outer wear. Seated from row were musicians Matt Gilmour, Gwilym Gold, ROrry Cottam, Samuel Fry, and Johnny Flynn. Sebastian Brice and Caspar Smyth actually walked in the show. They all would have looked good in the season’s killer moto-style leather jackets in tan, blue, and black; the trenches with buttons reminiscent of studs on the epaulets; and these cool armor plated, almost medieval style tops and jackets.

In the running for stand-out show of the day would be Versace. The notes Donatella provided for the men’s collection suggested a look back at some of the house’s earlier years. The results blew people away, undoubtedly great news for the collection’s new design partner, the young Martyn Bal. 80s and early 90s flares were ever-present—piled on jewelry, tons of fringe, crazy patterns, duo-tone shoes—but the tailoring felt very now. The attitude (and hair) was full-on new wave and rockabilly.

Closing out the night, John Varvatos cranked it up, sending a gang of models down the runway in pieces that epitomize his aesthetic. Fabrics were washed and crumpled. Jackets were layered over long gauzy or unfinished-hemmed shirts. A lot of the looks included a kind of funky, wrapped around the head type hat that somehow felt reminiscent of a b-boy’s ball cap. The partied-in, slept-in hair perfectly matched the louche, wild-rocker fashion.

All images courtesy of firstVIEW

KEYWORDS: Burberry, calvin klein, DOLCE AND GABBANA, fashion week, JOHN VARVATOS, MEN'S SHOWS, RUNWAY REPORT, VERSACE