SPRING 2015 MENSWEAR Cerruti 1881 Paris

Aldo Maria Camillo's mood board for Spring consisted of masculine portraits—from founder Nino Cerruti to actor Vincent Cassel—all rendered in black and white. So far, so classic. How, then, did this Cerruti 1881 Paris collection end up so laced with color, so urban? Camillo explained that a recent trip to California seduced him into proposing a look that "surfed" between sportswear and suiting. The idea worked for the blousons with athletic striped collars in double-face knit plaid and the reversible ribbed jacquard sweaters bearing palm fronds. But riding a dressed-down wave—especially for a brand associated with sartorial sharpness—requires an attitude that is half shrug, half wink, and the oversize shirts in reinterpreted scarf motifs came across as unconvincingly enthusiastic. The designer went out on a limb with color-blocked silk-nylon warm-up pants worn with unstructured robe coats and elongated waistcoats over mixed-material tanks. While these may be new looks for Cerruti, they have been sufficiently explored elsewhere. Camillo's fabric research produced some interesting jacquards, and his brief immersion in coastal Cali living materialized as a fun hybrid tasseled cork sandal, but by the time the component parts came together, they had lost their impact. Conversely, the outright rejection of neckwear—not a single tie—seemed as if he was taking the leisure-class theme to the exteme. 

As a styling quirk, socks were cut into legwarmers, extending an extra few inches beyond the cuffs of cropped and roomy trousers (pleating was left unpressed, giving the impression of greater movement). The socks almost looked like a wetsuit underlayer, but the Cerruti man is someone who knows that bare ankles are one of spring's greatest pleasures