Looks from Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Calvin Klein, Bottega Veneta, and Burberry Prorsum

Calls for transparency have been a feature of political discourse for the past year, so maybe it was only a matter of time before the theme filtered down from men’s minds to men’s wear. Now, with the Milan spring/summer 2010 collections – the clothes we will be wearing as we enter the next decade – that moment has arrived.

Sometimes the ideas were literal, as with the two most acclaimed shows of the week, Calvin Klein and Prada, which featured sci-fi translucent jerkins, transparent raincoats, jackets with see-through sleeves, perforated leather shoes and bomber jackets made of see-through mesh material. Even Prada’s new suits, lean and mean and cut in a Mod silhouette, were paired with transparent silk T-shirts.

ITALIAN TAILORING

Eccentricity, made to measure

“We are a Fiat 500 with the engine of a Ferrari: clever, fast and nimble.” Lapo Elkann, grandson of the billionaire car magnate Gianni Agnelli, is attempting to describe the ethos behind his men’s wear company, Italia Independent, launched two years ago. But a more concrete explanation might be a synthesis of exemplary Italian garment-making and high-performance fabrics, writes Eric Musgrave.

Witness his newest offering, on view last week during Pitti Uomo, the men’s wear shows in Florence. Adding a hand-tailored stratum, Elkann has arranged a deal with Saintandrews, the Milanese tailoring house. There will be eight styles of the I-I made-to-measure suits, which will start at €3,000 (£2,560): half will be classic cuts inspired by Elkann’s grandfather, and the rest more eccentric styles. “We want to play with the suits in a manner that is more rock ‘n’ roll,” says Elkann.

The brand’s other offerings include a steel-grey tuxedo made in a robust fabric that includes carbon fibre and Kevlar (a material used in bulletproof vests), Panama hats created in conjunction with hatmaker Borsalino, driving shoes made with shoemaker Arfango, and updated versions of Pantofola d’Oro’s slip-on loafer.

The company sells to 87 stores worldwide, while a tiny shop in St Tropez, opened in May, is the first of a mini-chain for the brand.

Sometimes the ideas were more metaphorical, as at Ermenegildo Zegna, where Napa blousons and Latin Lover summer suits with “Cool Effect” finishes that reflect the sun also clearly reflected the “nomadic nature” of today’s consumers.

Either way, an attempt to grapple with what this sort of full disclosure might mean when applied to dress and life was the overriding motif of the season.

At Jil Sander, for example, light seeped through feather-light nylon raincoats that gleamed like alabaster and floaty shirts with celestial imagery culled from Japanese painter Leonard Tsuguharu Foujita. At Bottega Veneta, dyed cashmere cardigans and crumpled, just-off-the-plane Napa blazers seemed spot on for any Wall Street-wary ex-executive. Etro’s cotton shirts came with images of shells, cones and beehives, while dusters had seaweed-effect finishes, a theme also apparent at Salvatore Ferragamo, where shoes were made of seaside materials – nets, straw mats and basket weaves. Versace sent out a modern take on the French Foreign Legion, via elongated djellabas with hazy desert mirage prints, ethnic Tuareg jewellery and tuxedos with faille collars and military braiding that conveyed a genial roving nonchalance.

Few Italian industries have enjoyed the fruits of globalisation as much as fashion, and judging from the Milan runways, designers were both acknowledging – and perhaps memorialising – the trend. So Gucci went down to Rio with a procession of white cotton piqué suits, ideal for a date in the Copacabana Palace Hotel, and the best accessories in Milan: rubberised or matte bulky weekend bags in noble skins of crocodile, ostrich or python.

At D&G, designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana took their rovers way out west in a show replete with wrecked and multi-hole jeans – also present in Romeo Gigli’s Io Ipse Idem label, where orange and iridescent indigo jackets were given a faux denim finish – as well as velvet tuxedos and mini bowties (a ubiquitous, slightly inexplicable trend). Still, these cowboys had neatly coiffed hair, as did most of the men in every other show, a striking reality in a city where hirsute, hard-partying models were all the rage even just two short years ago.

It’s the morning after in Italian fashion: see Giorgio Armani, whose sleek new suit, the “Classico 2010”, was cut taut at the shoulder, fluid at the hip and almost invariably worn without a tie; and Canali, which feted its 75th anniversary with a rare runway show, highlighted by bold double-chalk-striped linen suits.

This sobriety was also evident in the general colour palette, full of faded hues and lived-in finishes. “I wanted things to look a little dusty, like an English day, where there’s sun after a lot of rain,” said Burberry’s designer, Christopher Bailey, describing his new take on Burberry’s symbolic garment, the trench, which came in shower-proof waxed cottons and linens.

As always, there were exceptions to the general rule: Vivienne Westwood, for example, sent out striped cardigans and cargo Bermudas geared (she said) for a party in Errol Flynn’s dissolute yacht Sirocco, or an ocean liner cruise, and Alexander McQueen went all abstract expressionist with leather jackets made to look like used denim, patchwork jacquard shirts and paint-splattered jerkins that seemed to say, “Yes, men’s wear is for dreaming, and in the second decade of the 21st century the dream will be good.”

Sharing this view was Tom Ford, whose “Englishman on Mustique” presentation featured oodles of paisley in violet tuxedos and bathing suits, as well as Roberto Cavalli, who created high-waisted torero-meets-rocker leather pants, worn, ideally, shirtless on the dance-floor of Space or Pasha in Ibiza. And Brioni was bullish on the growing casual-wear end of the men’s market, offering a windbreaker in Prince of Wales check. But generally, such visions were in the minority.

More representative of the mood was Zegna’s chief executive, Gildo Zegna, who acknowledged, “Business is still very tough. We’re doing fine in Asia and Latin America, but America and Europe are not easy, and Spain is a disaster. Fashion is just not on most men’s priority list.”

Indeed, said Tom Murray, chief executive of Calvin Klein: “Our basic operating assumption is that the economy will remain this way for the next five years; and any upturn will be a surprise gift.”

As mentioned, it's all about full disclosure for spring.

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So, what is a micron?

What is a lightweight fabric?
“We consider the fabric light when it weighs no more then 170gsm [grams per sq metre]. Previously, a wool fabric of 200gsm was considered light,” says Pier Luigi Loro Piana of the fashion house and fabric producer Loro Piana.

What is a fine fabric?
Basically the same as a lightweight one. “Fabrics made with wool yarns measuring 17-12 microns,” says Anna Zegna, image director at Ermenegildo Zegna.

What’s a micron?
A micron, which is one-millionth of a metre, is commonly used to measure a wool fibre. With wool, each fleece comprises a very wide range of fibre diameters, some measuring as low as 10 microns and others more than 25. The fewer microns in diameter the fibre, the finer the thread and ultimately the fabric it can make.

How light can a fabric be?
There are wool-only fabrics that weigh just 110gsm, but few tailors can work with something so light unless it is treated or mixed with something else. Loro Piana offers a cashmere and silk fabric weighing only 100gsm. Specially processed, it has the strength necessary to withstand weaving, but is so light that a kilogram of this yarn would extend for around 570 kilometres.

Don’t light fabrics crease more easily?
No. Good-quality light fabrics actually crease less easily than heavier versions because their fine threads allow them to bounce back into shape more quickly.

What’s a ‘mixed’ fabric?
Mixing or blending threads produces fabrics that combine the best of all worlds. “We’ve found that wool and silk is an excellent mix in terms of quality, wearability and lightness,” says Zegna. “It also produces a special sheen. A wool and mohair mix also has a richness to the touch. Linen can be harsh, and it creases easily but blend it with wool and it becomes softer. Add cashmere and it develops a new personality. Mixing fabrics is like fusion cooking.”

What does ‘worsted’ mean?
“This relates to the preparation for spinning the yarn,” says Benjamin Jones of weavers Savile Clifford, based in Yorkshire. “There are two types of yarns. Woollen yarns have individual fibres that are roughly drawn in the same direction and can then be twisted to produce a relatively thick and open yarn. In worsted yarns, all the individual fibres are combed into exactly the same direction, which allows for finer and stronger yarns to be spun. Worsted is by far the superior way to produce yarns suitable for lightweight fabrics.”

What is best for summer?
“In summer the fabric should be breathable and light and soft to the touch so that the suit can be worn without lining both in the jacket and the pants to achieve maximum lightness and comfort,” says Loro Piana. “Wool, as opposed to linen and silk, has much better crease-resistance and so is preferable.”

www.loropiana.com; www.zegna.com

Simon Brooke