Fittingly, the main question that seemed to be on designers minds for Spring 2022’s Paris Men’s runway season was: what is menswear? Or another way of asking it might be, what should men wear? From the hunky sexuality of Burberry’s sleeveless trench coats to Prada’s binary-breaking embrace of the skort, we saw designers reconsider classic ideas of masculine dressing, or reimagine new ones.
In this connection, the various approaches to staging and presentation throughout the week felt especially interesting. All gender is performance, after all, and we were treated to some brilliant conceptual explorations of how to perform, how to present. Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons of Prada used architecture to create an extended visual metaphor of space and reemergence. Louis Vuitton shared a video presentation that fused samurai film tropes with hip-hop culture to embody the multicultural cocktail of Virgil Abloh’s menswear collection. One of the few brands to hold an in-person show, Hermès takes home our top spot with their presentation that fused architecture and live film for a complexly multi-layered experience.
Here are The Impression’s Top 10 Men’s fashion shows of Spring 2022 as selected by our Chief Impressionist, Kenneth Richard.
