After opening his first Paris show with an emotive speech of thanks, the Turkish designer Umit Benan ripped his way down his baseball field catwalk hooting and hollering for the finale, brandishing a scrawled poster that stated 'No to racism - for the love of the game'. It was all a part of Benan's heart-on-his-sleeve debut in a tribute to Jackie Robinson, the first African American baseball player to be accepted into the Major League in the 1940s. Benan split the show in two, opening with a dark passage of pre-Robinson oppression, his models pressing baseball mitts to their faces. When the lights came on, the mood lightened, and the masculine swagger of his All-American boys was revealed - their loose turtlenecks poking out under rumpled button-downs, and a slew of collegiate outerwear emblazoned with a 'B' badge in rusty, autumn tones. With ties too long, white socks and trousers short and wide, Benan's look was pure and authentic, making a though-provoking case for vintage (and virile) elegance amongst today's peacock parade.
Photography: Anna Stokland/Jason Lloyd-Evans
