Autumn Winter 2020 Menswear

Lapsed Influence
00092020

Garments as colour fields. Targets and grips. The grace of the archer and the philosophies of Kenneth Noland. Remove the artist through brushstrokes. Remove the designer through clothes. Kiko Kostadinov’s Autumn Winter 2020 collection disarms the viewer, hominizing an artist’s other life as student, pilot, father.

Personifying the chevron — a key leitmotif in Noland’s later work — intricately panelled separates create arrow-shaped colour blocking up and down the body. Investigation of couture tropes informs volume: a rolled collar, a folding hood, and drawstring and darted backs with batwing sleeves. Tackling old codes anew, the shawl collar appears on gilets and overcoats embroidered with a decorative grip pad motif. Curved zipper placements allow for an adaptable trouser and jacket silhouette, furthering the collection’s modular conceit.

Micro-textures create intimate frictions between rough and smooth perforated suedes, tonal animalia and python jacquards — all countered by the smooth matte finish of Loro Piana’s technical twill. Dimensional and structured, jersey tops feature built shoulders or a keyhole harness reflected in the slotted lapel closures of fluid tailoring. Further shooting accoutrements include adjustable hunting pockets, arrow holsters, and a knitted scarf beanie.

The Autumn Winter 2020 collection reveals the first standalone footwear collection, with the development of a laced shooter shoe and a hybrid clog built on a Vibram sole. A fourth collaboration with ASICS transforms the unique Flytefoam sole with a folding Velcro tongue in the season’s palette of coral, dust blue, and grey.