`Why should women have all the fun?” asks London-based menswear designer Richard James. ”Especially in eveningwear. When a man goes to a gala he usually wears exactly the same clothes: a black suit, white shirt and black tie. But his wife gets to dress up in all sorts of wonderful fashions and colors. Men should have some alternatives, too.”
James` solution is beaded velvet formal jackets and waistcoats that typify the overall menswear trend toward softer elegance.
”The waistcoats sell exceptionally well,” says James. ”They`re a little outrageous but still acceptable.”
James, who has put beading on everything from bicycle shorts to shirts and sweaters, uses the royal family`s beaders, Locks Ltd., to hand-detail every piece.
Hand-embroidered and -beaded pieces have been in each of James`
collections since he started designing five years ago under his own label, which caters to the fashion-forward crowd.
But beading is even hitting the mainstream with designers such as Bill Robinson, who puts black beading on cardigans and motorcycle jackets.
”I wanted to take some very male classic item such as the motorcycle jacket or plain black cardigan and give it a whole new flourish,” says Robinson, who is based in New York. ”At first I did them mainly as show pieces, but they have actually been selling quite well. I`m glad menswear seems to be going into a softer, more luxurious look overall. For so long everything was so severe, flat and hard-edge urban.”
The beading experiment was so successful that Robinson plans to add at least one huge, 8-by-10-inch beaded crest motif to sweaters in next fall`s collection.
”The thing I find most interesting about this whole thing,” says Robinson, ”is that if you try to do something a little off the wall in menswear, you can really push it to the edge and have a lot more success in selling it if you do it in formalwear rather than casual clothes. I guess people just want to be noticed more at parties than in the everyday world.”
Selected pieces shown here by Bill Robinson are available by special order at Davis for Men, 440-0016; and Marshall Field & Co., 781-1000. Selected pieces by Richard James are available through Maxfield, Los Angeles, 213-274-8800; Wilkes Bashford, San Francisco, 415-986-4380; and Bergdorf Goodman, New York, 212-753-7300. All prices are approximate.
