After touching on political references for its fall 2017 collection, fashion brand N°21 embraces lighter thoughts. Approaching spring-summer 2018, creative director Alessandro Dell’Acqua takes us to the beach. The designer shares, “I designed a collection where freedom prevails over construction and lightness describes a wish for escape–not the type that’s synonymous with flight from present reality, for in his detachment from normal life the man I have in mind expresses the will we all have to rise above day-to- day goings-on in a world that seems to make everything very difficult, very arduous.”
Related: N°21 Embraces a Season of Protest for Fall ’17 Collection
N°21 Spring/Summer 2018 Men’s Collection
It’s a vacation story, about freedom, relaxation and optimism, free will too. About touches of eccentricity – as opposed to the pursuit of a clean style–as if it was the way to shift attention, to transfer symbolism and details. The N°21 Spring/Summer 2018 men’s collection expresses an authentic aspiration for levity and the sense of liberation that comes with.
This form of escape can, for instance, emerge in the placed print on a white shirt depicting a surfer in action; or in a print illustrating other beach games on an otherwise plain yellow vinyl trench coat, inspired by a young Matt Dillon photographed by Bruce Weber in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s. Images where the sense of lightness becomes complementary to a lifestyle that’s relaxed yet not indifferent, aware but not concerned. Just as the vinyl detailing on jackets talks about style, the jacquard textures of knits are a nod to the responsibility of a train of thought that’s never superficial. Similarly, contrast piping offsets the classic cut of pants, so attaining a pajama-like softness, while ramage design prints add richness. Then there are coats and jackets in mixes of check fabrics that work closely with the blue suits in cool wool.
“Blue is very important in a man’s wardrobe since it mixes easily with any other color. I use it a lot because I love it: for me, it holds both the idea of freshness and the idea of freedom,” says Alessandro Dell’Acqua. Desirable characteristics that also represent the guidelines of this summer collection all about the beneficial effects of the relaxed feeling of optimism.
