It’s very late in the day on day three at Milan fashion week and we are catching a glimpse at the standing showroom models of Harmont & Blaine, an informal menswear company from Naples, Italy. For those of you who don’t already know the brand H & B makes high-end casual menswear for the cosmopolitan man who loves colours, and who loves well-made premium quality clothing. Collections are themed around the Mediterranean lifestyle, and Harmont & Blaine is well known for its small Dachshund logo.The company has 500 employees and 60 stores in Italy. Seventy stores exist outside Italy in some of the following locations: Prague, Moscow, Mexico City, Cartagena, Milan, Miami, Doha, Dubai and Santo Domingo. This casual men’s – and outerwear is fit for both work AND weekend.

We study the FW 15/16 collection during the presentation and read that the press release states that the collection is themed ‘a kaleidoscope of sounds, colours, scents, and cultures.’ And indeed for a winter collection this show is particularly vibrant in its colours, even though mocha and coffee cream seem to dominate, not to speak of what the press release dubs ‘yellow tuff’ and (BDMOTP’s favourite newly discovered colour during Milan fashion week) ‘Pompeii red’ – after the colours of the bricks of buildings in Napoli.

Frequent overlapping and interchangeability of the materials and fabrics used in the collection contribute to kaleidoscopic Mediterranean effects. The jacket padding is light. The denim is soft. You will find macro structures with micro patterns like Prince of Wales or the classic bocks in checkers.  Robust yarn knit-wear is found in all jackets, coats, and trousers which will eventually give the impression of a quilt mosaic which is the motif and signature of this collection’s theme of a Mediterranean kaleidoscope. Thus you will find multicolour inlays in different types of pockets or pouches or on the inside your polo shirt. And of course the traditional Mediterranean horizontal sailor-stripe pattern is inevitably making a grand return – even in winter!

The protagonist title for this winter fashion story perhaps could be the Return of Corto Maltese (the eponymous comic book hero created by Hugo Pratt) who, long sideburns and all, always goes in casual style and Mediterranean colours sailing the seven seas while maintaining a rather diffident and phlegmatic attitude towards all the many things occurring around him. We can imagine him wearing Harmont & Blaine while finding his path, slowly sailing softly onward towards the horizon in what can only be called the grand kaleidoscope of life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Sandro Joo and photos by Paloma Canseco.