Dunhill S/S 2016
Mood board: How does a global luxury brand that started life as a saddlery business on London's Euston Road in 1893 grab the attention of the contemporary well-dressed man? Dunhill creative director John Ray answered that this season with a celebration of the idiosyncrasies that men bring to conventional dressing. Noting the rakish charm of the late actor David Niven and the all-together aloof and jaunty charisma of British princes in their youth, the clothes presented at Phillips Gallery suited the man who chooses to dress up at the weekend when everyone else might be dressing down.
Best in show: Roomy striped rugby shirts cut in smart cotton shirting were worn with silk neckerchiefs and a raised collar. Double pleat front trousers were wide and rolled up at the ankle suggesting a uniform for the gentleman whose military roots are never far away.
Scene setting: The collection was shown to the sounds of Acid Brass - a musical collaboration between Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller and the Williams Fairey Brass Band that first began in 1997. A reworking of 808 State's 1989 track Pacific State, reimagined by brass band became the aural footnote to the offbeat ways in which English gentlemen enjoy riffing off of their own traditions.
Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans
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London based writer Dal Chodha is editor-in-chief of Archivist Addendum — a publishing project that explores the gap between fashion editorial and academe. He writes for various international titles and journals on fashion, art and culture and is a contributing editor at Wallpaper*. Chodha has been working in academic institutions for more than a decade and is Stage 1 Leader of the BA Fashion Communication and Promotion course at Central Saint Martins. In 2020 he published his first book SHOW NOTES, an original hybrid of journalism, poetry and provocation.
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