Anatomy of a Collection – The Black Lapel Take on Men’s Spring Fashion 2016

Each year, the purveyors of men’s spring fashion bestow upon us the next hot trends. Whether it’s mandals and suits or spring scarves, wrapped like ascots around the pencil-thin necks of androgynous models, there’s always something new.But here’s the thing: nobody has a use for those styles. It’s not that the stuff you see in men’s spring fashion shows looks bad, it’s just that wearing it would require a drastic change from the way most guys usually dress and what they usually do. Unless you’re jumping onto your yacht for a quick jaunt along the French Riviera in your latest suit, who’s really rocking these looks?

So, at Black Lapel, we asked ourselves why so much of men’s spring fashion an exercise in irrelevance? That was the genesis of the new collection of shirts and suits from Black Lapel. We’re here to say that you don’t need to reinvent yourself. You don’t need a makeover. Life is too short for do-overs. There are no mulligans. No, we’re not about to ask you to make sweeping changes.

Instead, this spring’s collection asks you to make subtle additions to your style and turn formerly nondescript details into your signature elements. With this collection, we are asking you to embrace nuance.

Nuance:
a slight or delicate variation in tone, color, meaning, etc,;
shade of difference

The New Nuance of Shirts

Men’s spring fashion dictates that men wear brighter colors and, while you won’t see us launching any Miami Vice style suits, you will find us drawing inspiration from classic spring colors like sky blue, sea foam turquoise and light lavender for this season’s shirt colors. These light, airy colors don’t stray too far from your favorite crisp white shirts, but you don’t see them on every other guy in the world either.

The true nuance of these shirts comes in the patterns. From the slightest of herringbones to the subtlest of stripes to the smallest of checks, these shirts deliver the nuanced style that is the signature of this spring’s collection.

Nuance is at the heart of the suit collection this spring as well. When we looked at a stack of fabric swatches months ago, trying to get into a spring mood we went back to the idea that reinvention was not the goal for most men. Instead we started with the idea that spring is a season of revitalizing and rejuvenating and Black Lapel’s contribution to men’s spring fashion ought to reflect that.

So the question is: what will you be wearing this season? Will you be stretching yourself to push past basics? Will you be reining in the trendiness in favor of more timeless style? With this collection of shirts and suits, you’ll hit the sweet spot between.