Neil Barrett (Q3487)
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Neil Barrett is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Neil Barrett |
Neil Barrett is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
1999
fashion designer
There are so many details in menswear that have all the practical use of an appendix: vestigial organs whose use has long outlived their original functional purpose, and which are only retained out of habit, nostalgia and ceremony. In his collection shown this afternoon, Neil Barrett applied his eye to some of these overlooked hand-me-downs and then freshened them up through recontextualization. The key example was the white pocket square that poked forth from pec-zone pockets on his laser-sharp leathers, taffeta-tech four-button jackets, T-shirts and sweats. “It’s just such a signifying element, an iconic sartorial iconic detail. So it felt right to me to use it,” he said.Barrett’s itch to stretch context was further scratched through the elastic shirting garters used to secure sleeves at elbow length on jackets, sweats and knits. These were encased in identical fabrics to the garments they were applied to “so it’s giving you an attitude, but it’s also practical and functional,” said Barrett. Moving beyond details and into materials he also incorporated taffeta (touched with technical fabric) into super-light blousons, sports shorts, jackets and topcoats. Heavier duchesse satin provided gleam and stiffness to finely structured double hem pants and shorts. As Barrett added: “it’s looking at staples in the men’s wardrobe and bringing in fabrications that are more luxurious and more used in womenswear.”Handsome heavy indigo pants came with pleats that reached around to obscure the pocket, creating the sense of a furled wing plus providing a great option for gents with substantial quads. As well as those double hems, also a feature on sweatshirts, Barrett’s pants sometimes came with velcro cuffs at the ankle. These echoed the velcro fastenings on chunky derbies and sandals which, teamed with gray or black knit socks, gave even the sleekest looks a slightly schoolboy air. Sartorial patterns including microchecks, shirting stripes and pinstripe were applied on top-to-toe short sleeve shirt and medium-short shorts looks: this was another recontextualization in a collection which, like last season’s, gently and intelligently created fascinating frictions between genres and periods of taste in menswear.
15 June 2024
Neil Barrett’s elevator pitch for this collection was “the Duke of Devonshire meets the Thin White Duke.” He said: “It’s about a character who is modern and completely engaged in the contemporary yet who also has an understanding and respect for what came before: heritage and tradition.” The result was a collection of clothing that, through subtle modernizations of cut, detail, and fabric, allowed you to dress with an old soul but a young spirit.Beautiful wool Crombie-style coats, old-school, came with atypical diagonal pockets at the hip, enabling a more freewheeling posture within the apparently formal. Padded coats and super-soft blousons and adapted country coats were either cut in water-repellent “techno-tweed” or a lustrously soft avatar of Harris Tweed (but Made In Italy). Long wool pants were cinched at the ankle by Velcro tabs and poppers, an idea sourced in hunters’ plus fours but just as useful when wanting to display your latest footwear grail.A really great piece was the updated duffle coat in brown or black cut in high-volume but ultralight padded nylon. It came with the cordage and walrus-tusk fastenings (nota bene: that’s just the traditional name—no walruses were harmed) attached to inserted pads that looked like pieces of moto-protection. This was a mash-up of multiple parts that resulted in something distinct and apparently wonderful to wear.There were other details less linked to that central push and pull between trad and rad, but which were also powerfully wantable: Minutely tapered mid-wale corduroys in off-white or plum (always a great color co-ord in cords) came equipped with excellently adapted carpenter’s tool pockets southeast of the right glute. As Barrett noted, that pant style is currently in its closest orbit to currency after a long languish in the wilderness. Elbow patches were pulled forward onto the forearm, while knits came in a patchwork of traditional patterns fragmented then put together.By dancing between the north and south of old and new, the contrast between formal and informal—which is so last century, yet still so categorically ingrained—seemed barely there. Instead, Barrett was creating space to allow attitude, not genre, define his customers’ style.
13 January 2024
After seasons of variously staged presentations, Neil Barrett returned to a physical show as part of Milan’s fashion calendar. He was also “homing in on my core codes,” he said. “Precision, respect and love of fabrics, the obsession for details, and finding solutions for people’s lives through the clothes they wear.”Barrett started his label in 1999, so he knows a thing or two about minimalism, which was actually the style around which he built his brand. “My take on minimalism has always been rather warm,” he said. However, he’s still fond of the rigorous attention to construction that comes from his family’s tradition in military tailoring. Chez Barrett, the aplomb of the garments, the way they are neatly cut and sharply designed is disciplined and faultless.Since minimalism is back on the fashion forefront; Barrett is in a good position to sync up his offer with the zeitgeist. The spring collection was a refreshing of his best-ofs; he loosened up the fit of the formal tailoring he favors, making it less strict, modernizing the silhouette with slightly roomier proportions to accommodate different ages and body types. He worked on the collection inspired by some of his friends, “talented people I like and respect,” including an Italian furniture designer, Japanese and Korean architects and the owner of an Italian fabric company.The humanity of the inspiration filtered into the warm color palette lightened up by pops of saffron yellow, lemon and acid green, and in the elegant functionality of the workwear-inspired boxy uniforms around which the collection pivoted. Barrett, his friends and customers believe in the purposeful nature of well-designed clothing; they aren’t about pyrotechnics. “I’m basically a geek,” he said.
17 June 2023
Neil Barrett built his fall collection around individuality and a sense of reality. “I wanted to be as realistic as possible—about my work, about how I design and why I design,” he said at a preview in his headquarters, where he was shooting the lookbook. This soul-searching moment had him considering the foundations of his language, going back to his design beginnings in the ’90s.Barrett is a great tailor, and that hasn’t changed throughout his career. Precision of lines, disciplined construction, and sharpness of cut keep the identity of his garments strong and rooted in the present time. This season he riffed on his repertoire, turning to music tribes for inspiration, “because individuals make sense if they belong together to a community, and music is the greatest aggregator,” he explained.Punk and post-punk, rock, and new wave served as conceptual background for the modern uniforms he favors. Do not expect anything laid-back, nonchalant, or destroyed though; the sense of rebellion associated with certain music movements was filtered through Barrett’s naturally strict, rigorous design approach. Little distortions here and there hinted at a looser mood: an argyle pattern came slightly subverted in a Kurt Cobain-ish grungy way; black leather coats had a touch of Berlin-Kraftwerk attitude; and rock concert T-shirts were emblazoned with zodiac insignia.Elsewhere, Barrett’s tailoring skills were in full display in an array of kimono peacoats, cropped blousons, padded leather shirts, and hybrids (another favorite) that just reconfirmed the solidity of his expertise. It has stayed intact from his very beginnings.
16 January 2023
Neil Barrett is at a point in his career where he can actually reference his own work. “I’ve become sort of a heritage brand,” he joked at his presentation. On the first day of the men’s season here, Milan was in the midst of a sticky heatwave, with humidity so dense as to make oxygen feel almost in short supply. Barrett came to the rescue, offering, along with welcome refreshments in his well AC’d venue, a collection built on the concept of air circulating around the body—a most pertinent idea in the unbearably hot conditions.The utilitarian sophistication of ’90s minimalism (which he defines as “an elevated concept of simplicity”) has always resonated for Barrett, who has a background in sharp military tailoring. For spring he riffed on the consistency of his wardrobe’s strongholds, referencing an urban uniform look and clean-cut, smart sportswear. Inspired by military attire made for extreme weather conditions, garments were structured and engineered to let the body breathe.Fabrications were paneled, perforated, or pierced, with holes, slits, and cuts exposing bare skin or thin layers of mesh underneath. As a subtle decorative gesture, which Barrett described as ‘reductionist,’ metallic eyelets were sparsely appliquéd to create visual appeal on square-cut trucker jackets and straight trousers with round cut-outs at the knees.The presentation was shown in a video format in the white cube of Barrett’s headquarters, which was transformed with high dunes of dark sand that lent it a surreal, artsy atmosphere. “I wanted to replicate nature inside an industrial environment,” Barrett said. He called the collection Urban Oasis. And indeed, it was.
18 June 2022
As a son of a British family of military tailors, Neil Barrett understands the stylish appeal of uniforms from a perspective which is almost intimate. For fall, he played on his knowledge of the subtleties of their meanings and the complex practicality of their construction, in an exercise of reinterpretation which he said was rather enjoyable. “When I stay true to my roots, everything falls into place and comes across as authentic and believable,” he said. “The quality of the garment, the precision of the cut, the fit; everything seems right. This a very Neil Barrett collection.”Opting out of a physical show, he decided to go digital. “Everything changes so quickly,” he said referring to the still uncertain pandemic situation, “and I like to be precise.” His exacting attention to every aspect of the creative process was applied to the video presentation of the collection. In a hot pink room, a pair of moving runways of the sort found in airports were installed, transporting the models with choreographed movements throughout the space. The audience was replaced by pictures of eyeballs looking at the show from the walls, the pupils actually following the coming and going of the models. While it was loosely inspired by Jamiroquai’s 1996 video for “Virtual Insanity,” it made me think of the work of the American contemporary artist Tony Oursler, where moving eyeballs are transormed into surreal video sculptures. Barrett said that he approached the concept as if it were a music video; in any case, the results were as entertaining and artistic as they were effective.Barrett gave himself room to experiment with gusto on multiple variations of the uniform theme, exploring the archetypes of different worlds and mixing them together in a polished exercise of hybridization. “Uniforms are about identity,” he said. “But they’re also about individuality and a sense of belonging. I wanted to offer new versions for today’s man, rooted in tradition but filtered through my sensibility and a strong sense of modernity.”Wide-cut naval trousers, fishermen sweaters, military field jackets and greatcoats, airforce padded bombers, and workers’ utilitarian garments as well as high-ranking regalia—from the vast spectrum of uniforms (puffers and tuxedos were also included as signifiers of identity), Barrett extracted shapes and details he combined with considered attention.
Replacing military decorations, studs and buttons were applied to trousers, or on the front of sharp-cut field jackets. A padded airforce bomber jacket, made in collaboration with Alpha Industries, was turned into a mac, while a tuxedo coat was cut from a thick, spongy, protective fabrication traditionally used by British policemen. A peacoat had the memory of badges on the shoulders and was worn with matching trousers as an unexpected suiting gesture; a ribbed fisherman sweater was hybridized with nylon padded inserts, while an oversized shearling bomber was made from patches and intarsia of different textures. Throughout the collection, a jean jacket collar with a cropped laced gilet on top was worn under suits or over crisp cotton shirts.A tour de force into the intricacies of the world of uniforms, the collection looked imaginative and creative, and was blended cohesively by Barrett’s sharp, fastidious eye and his mastery of cut and construction.
17 January 2022
To celebrate the new sense of optimism developing amidst the loosening of lockdowns, Neil Barrett’s crew decamped to Milan’s Idroscalo amusement park to shoot his look book. “We had such fun,” he said at a showroom appointment. “We really enjoyed putting this collection together—there’s such a need to socialize, to be out again, to feel free.”Impeccably tailored, utilitarian urban uniforms are what Barrett excels at; he’s an intelligent designer whose offer is focused, compact, and neat in its luxurious clarity. For spring, he gave himself the freedom to explore a softer, livelier creative side—broadening his chromatic spectrum, introducing graphic prints, and getting inspired by nature, dance, and music festivals. “The joy of movement and freedom,” he began, “places where people come together and have a great time, like Burning Man or the Tulum music festival.”Abstract renditions of flying dancers, cacti, and wild desert animals were jacquard-ed on sweats or printed on boxy, slightly rigid workwear-inspired shirts; gradients of military green and blue counterbalanced a hushed palette of beige, ivory, and black. “After two seasons of neutrals, I really wanted some color,” he said. But he did it his way, using three tones of blue and green, with a few accents of soft pink.To enhance the sense of movement, construction was roomy, rounded, and comfortable, but lines were kept diagonal and ergonomic. Capacious utilitarian pockets were treated decoratively, cut slightly curved on an elongated military jacket, or patched irregularly on an oversized field jacket for a fresh take on a popular army-surplus template.During the pandemic Barrett diversified, adding contemporary price points adjacent to his signature high-end tailored options. The move has proved successful, not least of all because of a series of collaborations with specialized brands: Eastpak for travel and body bags, American outerwear manufacturer Alpha Industries for down jackets, and the skate company Northwave for sneakers.The lockdowns seem to have fueled Barrett’s drive and commitment to reengineer his company, energizing it with new vitality. There’s no time for Burning Man. “I’ve always wanted to go,” he said. “But the time is never right, as it’s held at the end of August. In August I usually have a relaxing holiday, to recharge before going back to work. And then at the end of your vacation you go to the desert to destroy yourself? It’s a no-no. Maybe I’ll do it in another life.”
30 June 2021
“People were complimenting me on my pieces but complained about the prices,” said Neil Barrett on a Zoom call from his headquarters in Milan. “My friends loved the collection but they couldn’t afford it. They kept saying, ‘Are you crazy? It’s too expensive!’” This is hardly just Neil Barrett’s problem: Prices at luxury fashion houses are more often than not outrageously high. But Barrett is obsessive about more than just getting every minute detail of his impeccable tailoring right. “I’ve always had the dream to make my label more inclusive and democratic,” he said. “I felt very strongly that I wanted to offer collections accessible to a larger audience. Finally, I succeeded.”It took the pandemic to give him the opportunity to “react, recalibrate, reformulate,” he said. Through a carefully planned restructuring of his production chain, starting from fall he’s now able to have 50% of his collections offered at contemporary-level prices, while keeping the high standards of execution and quality he’s known for. The choice reflects his belief that today’s reality needs clever adjustments: An ideal wardrobe should be built around a balance between perfectly made, luxurious investment pieces and more casual garments, equally well made but much less costly. A pair of designer jeans, a nylon puffer, a cool tracksuit, or a casual shirt shouldn’t force you to break open your piggy bank.“This collection is a reflection and a reaction to what has happened during this year. It takes into account the changes that have happened in our daily lives,” said Barrett. He worked on his hallmark idea of a daywear uniform, making it “alternative,” as he put it, “as it doesn’t contemplate the same conditions and occasions we lived in ‘the before.’” To this end, he opened up the tailoring, making it less formal and strict, with looser fits and eased-up structures, keeping a practical and utilitarian focus without detracting from the sharpness of cut he favors. (Barrett comes from generations of British military tailors.)Since our daily lives are mostly spent indoors, he made even the suiting feel and look lighter and more supple, with no padding or lining, so you can look smart even at home, Zooming or receiving small groups of friends. Shirting was offered in boxy-shaped iterations, with printed cubist patterns, color-block intarsias or macro logo graphics adding visual impact.
A picture of a flock of crows in flight was taken by Barrett at his home in Devon and translated into a printed motif. “I haven’t been back since December 2019,” he said, almost in disbelief.Hybrids, a Barrett signature, came through bicolor tailoring, as in an updated version of a beige camel-hair coat, whose back was made from black double-faced wool; a suit jacket which borrowed the arms of an MA1 bomber jacket; and a pair of sweatpants featuring fake sleeves wrapped in front to hug the hips, like a kind gesture of comfort. “Making the practical beautiful,” was how Barrett summed it up. “Today, casualwear is more defined, and formality is gentler.”
10 March 2021
Neil Barrett tellingly called the spring collection he designed during lockdown ‘DNA.’ The pandemic has been a wake-up call for many designers, making them turn inward, reflecting on their past and on the values they represent through their work. “I wanted to focus on what my brand stands for, on its essence, on what I really believe in,” he said during a Zoom conversation. “And also I wanted to cut through the noise of producing extra-fluff just for the sake of it—or just to follow what others are doing.” He called the collection ‘an exercise in purity.’Barrett has never actually strayed from his concise, rigorous style, or his appreciation for urban-uniform dressing. The disciplined essentiality of the tailoring he favors comes from military cutting techniques, which he blends with modern elements of sportswear and workwear. Practicality is paramount in his style, and so is a sense of elegant neatness. The need for reduction that the lockdown has brought on only made his vision sharper. It just reinforced and tightened his minimalistic bent, which was inspired by the slender, lean look he personally favored in the ’90s.Here, he kept the silhouette slim and streamlined, with occasional introductions of looser, slightly oversized pieces. The color palette was limited to black, safari, and navy blue; fabrics were technical to emphasize comfort and practicality.It isn’t surprising that Bauhaus is one of Barrett’s favorite artistic movements. A figurative motif inspired by the modernist graphics of that style was printed on boxy cotton shirts. To further soften the rigorous polish of the collection, a photographic print of his hands and of those of his collaborators was also printed in black and white on pristine white T-shirts and straight-cut chemises: “Hands represent gestures of creativity and craft,” he explained. “I wanted to go back to why I’m doing what I do. Hands are unique to each of us—they speak of our soul. I wanted this collection to be true to my handwriting.”
28 September 2020
Entitled ‘Untitled’ — because he said a title is a pigeon hole he didn’t want to be put in — this very full Neil Barrett collection was a post-postmodern menswear mixathon that spanned both time and genre. It was also, Barrett said, a personal return: “It was the comparisons between the art world and the fashion world. And the idea of looking back and doing a retrospective.” Hence the first look was based on a vintage wool biker hybrid coat from Barrett’s Fall 2003 collection, and many of the pieces that followed were prefigured in past collections. Tonight, however, he layered on extra flourishes like an artist who is reunited with his work and decides to add to the canvas.In fact the collection was built around an imaginary personification of an artist going through various stages of his life, a life which, according to the David Lynch sampling soundtrack, was based around “this idea that you drink coffee you smoke cigarettes and you paint.” That lifespan idea allowed for an age-diverse casting which was there to emphasize Barrett’s broad appeal. He said that until recently his most dedicated base stemmed from the 35-45-year-old sliver of living masculinity but that recently they have been pushed into second place by under-25s.Apart from the blown up Berber carpet reliefs on suits and a Julian Schnabel homaging dressing gown, all of the graphics in this collection, the lettering and the Vermeer mash were made by a Milan street artist named Red who also modelled (look 12). The garments showed that despite Barrett’s longevity he is still consumed by an urgent instinct to tear down and rebuild: he was especially proud of the biker trenchcoat hybrids for both men and women, while I most enjoyed the leather, nylon and denim mashing piumino looks.Clothes are a long-serving tool for guys to break away from their fathers when they are young and then reconnect with them later, but here Barrett’s hybrid mania served to transcend the membrane of stage-of-life fashion prejudice and deliver a wardrobe fit for all seven ages of man.
11 January 2020
Entitled ‘Untitled’ — because he said a title is a pigeon hole he didn’t want to be put in — this very full Neil Barrett collection was a post-postmodern menswear mixathon that spanned both time and genre. It was also, Barrett said, a personal return: “It was the comparisons between the art world and the fashion world. And the idea of looking back and doing a retrospective.” Hence the first look was based on a vintage wool biker hybrid coat from Barrett’s Fall 2003 collection, and many of the pieces that followed were prefigured in past collections. Tonight, however, he layered on extra flourishes like an artist who is reunited with his work and decides to add to the canvas.In fact the collection was built around an imaginary personification of an artist going through various stages of his life, a life which, according to the David Lynch sampling soundtrack, was based around “this idea that you drink coffee you smoke cigarettes and you paint.” That lifespan idea allowed for an age-diverse casting which was there to emphasize Barrett’s broad appeal. He said that until recently his most dedicated base stemmed from the 35-45-year-old sliver of living masculinity but that recently they have been pushed into second place by under-25s.Apart from the blown up Berber carpet reliefs on suits and a Julian Schnabel homaging dressing gown, all of the graphics in this collection, the lettering and the Vermeer mash were made by a Milan street artist named Red who also modelled (look 12). The garments showed that despite Barrett’s longevity he is still consumed by an urgent instinct to tear down and rebuild: he was especially proud of the biker trenchcoat hybrids for both men and women, while I most enjoyed the leather, nylon and denim mashing piumino looks.Clothes are a long-serving tool for guys to break away from their fathers when they are young and then reconnect with them later, but here Barrett’s hybrid mania served to transcend the membrane of stage-of-life fashion prejudice and deliver a wardrobe fit for all seven ages of man.
11 January 2020
“The collection has respect for tradition and heritage,” said Neil Barrett backstage before his show. “But at the same time it has a break-the-rules kind of attitude.” Known for his sharp, inventive tailoring, mostly in black and white, today’s show felt like the designer celebrating a more youthful spirit and a more diverse, energetic and exploratory approach.Case in point was the showspace, usually stark and minimal. This season Barrett worked with South African artist-in-residence Jody Paulsen creating compelling visuals covering the entirety of the glossy floor, inducing an immersive, almost trippy feel. Paulsen also worked with the designer on creating artworks. A kind of new heraldry and fictional ‘Old Boy’ crest decorated garments, echoing college scarves, conveying a youthful spirit slashed with a streety vibe. Boxy tops and cropped shorts punctuated the collection, counterbalanced by the play on hybrids, which are one of Barrett’s distinctive style traits. Finely executed and displaying the designer’s skilled tailoring technique and inventive repertoire, they were the collection’s strongest point. Raincoats were mixed with hunting jackets; bombers were blended with truck tops; sweatshirts joined with leather jackets in new imaginative shapes. Even the shoes were given a hybridized treatment, with a new sneaker fusing skateboard and basketball styles and mismatched colors.The show finale embraced the uplifting mood, with a futuristic ghetto blaster incorporated into a sleek black backpack. “You can carry it around and have a full, major party anytime, anywhere,” enthused Barrett.
17 June 2019
“The collection has respect for tradition and heritage,” said Neil Barrett backstage before his show. “But at the same time it has a break-the-rules kind of attitude.” Known for his sharp, inventive tailoring, mostly in black and white, today’s show felt like the designer celebrating a more youthful spirit and a more diverse, energetic and exploratory approach.Case in point was the showspace, usually stark and minimal. This season Barrett worked with South African artist-in-residence Jody Paulsen creating compelling visuals covering the entirety of the glossy floor, inducing an immersive, almost trippy feel. Paulsen also worked with the designer on creating artworks. A kind of new heraldry and fictional ‘Old Boy’ crest decorated garments, echoing college scarves, conveying a youthful spirit slashed with a streety vibe. Boxy tops and cropped shorts punctuated the collection, counterbalanced by the play on hybrids, which are one of Barrett’s distinctive style traits. Finely executed and displaying the designer’s skilled tailoring technique and inventive repertoire, they were the collection’s strongest point. Raincoats were mixed with hunting jackets; bombers were blended with truck tops; sweatshirts joined with leather jackets in new imaginative shapes. Even the shoes were given a hybridized treatment, with a new sneaker fusing skateboard and basketball styles and mismatched colors.The show finale embraced the uplifting mood, with a futuristic ghetto blaster incorporated into a sleek black backpack. “You can carry it around and have a full, major party anytime, anywhere,” enthused Barrett.
15 June 2019
“Most people, when they get to 20 years, do a celebration—a best of—but I’m the type of character who looks to push on, to take a step forward.” So said Neil Barrett after this 20th anniversary show that absolutely wasn’t.Instead of getting all misty-eyed and wrapped up with himself, Barrett celebrated this anniversary by exploring a theme—punk—that he has never got into before. Tim Blanks (an elephant never forgets) immediately reminded Barrett that he had once explored “Amish Punk”: “Wow, you get 10 points for remembering that,” said Barrett.This collection was more postcolonial punk than anything else. As Barrett rightly observed, the original strain of this all-influencing youth culture was a mash-up of biker, school uniform, and military, which first expressed itself in Britain in the late 1970s. Tonight the designer internationalized the concept by mixing printed neon signage from London’s Soho red-light district and Tokyo’s Shinjuku. Eco-fur collars and hoods on ostensibly classic topcoats—so beautifully cut—and overprint tiger stripes on check separates further emphasized the clash he was getting at.In construction, this collection felt too clean-cut—way too luxury—to be even vaguely punk. But Neil Barrett is punk—just with a personal trainer and a share portfolio.
12 January 2019
“Most people, when they get to 20 years, do a celebration—a best of—but I’m the type of character who looks to push on, to take a step forward.” So said Neil Barrett after this 20th anniversary show that absolutely wasn’t.Instead of getting all misty-eyed and wrapped up with himself, Barrett celebrated this anniversary by exploring a theme—punk—that he has never got into before. Tim Blanks (an elephant never forgets) immediately reminded Barrett that he had once explored “Amish Punk”: “Wow, you get 10 points for remembering that,” said Barrett.This collection was more postcolonial punk than anything else. As Barrett rightly observed, the original strain of this all-influencing youth culture was a mash-up of biker, school uniform, and military, which first expressed itself in Britain in the late 1970s. Tonight the designer internationalized the concept by mixing printed neon signage from London’s Soho red-light district and Tokyo’s Shinjuku. Eco-fur collars and hoods on ostensibly classic topcoats—so beautifully cut—and overprint tiger stripes on check separates further emphasized the clash he was getting at.In construction, this collection felt too clean-cut—way too luxury—to be even vaguely punk. But Neil Barrett is punk—just with a personal trainer and a share portfolio.
12 January 2019
Neil Barrett said before this show that he has never, ever, worn a floral. Neither Liberty ditzy nor Hawaiian hibiscus has once graced the Barrett form. He’s not even been tempted—let alone succumbed to that temptation—to slip a pair of riotously petal-printed boxers beneath his austere Blackbarrett workout gear. This seems a pretty extreme position to take, after all; the flower is perhaps humankind’s most recurring decorative motif. Barrett insisted, however, that he isn’t prejudiced against florals—he just hasn’t yet met a floral he liked enough to wear.Hence, partly, this collection: “It was about how to make the floral masculine,” he said. It was also an analysis and reconsideration of uniforms, especially sportswear.But back to the flowers, specifically the anemone. This was Barrett-ized by the removal of color and the accentuation of contrast, printed monochromatically on neoprone bomber jackets and duffel bags or upon a Prince of Wales check. On a knit sweater it was the lower layer beneath a prison-cell grid of sunny yellow lines that matched the rubberized floor of Barrett’s show space, and on trenchcoats, bombers, and shorts the anemone was applied in black-on-black jacquard patches. Oh, yes, it was also realized in volumized abstract illustrations on T-shirts and a raincoat, and printed in red on black backpacks and shorts. Bottom line is that Barrett had overcome his aversion for florals with a blitzkrieg of industrialized blooms.Beneath these lurked a long ode to the potential of scuba in sportswear, which overlapped into the women’s Resort. Neoprene is an inherently dubious material, pleasing to a certain eye yet unyielding and cloying to wear, but Barrett’s bombers were efficiently attractive enough (less sure about a short-legged dry suit). There were some great, great combat pants with twisted carrot shapes, minimal black suiting with frayed-hem pants for men and women, and a powerful sneaker called the Bolt 01 in two upper designs whose sole featured the Barrett lightning bolt, a motif he recently said he would never wear again—but he seems to have recanted.If sportswear is the new everywhere-wear—which it is—then Neil Barrett is at the vanguard of those who are refining its codes. And that he’s willing to put a flower on it shows that beneath all that appearance of rigor he’s a flexible soul—on his own terms.
18 June 2018
Neil Barrett comes from a family of British military tailors; precise cuts, sharp silhouettes, and exacting details are practically in his DNA. Even his pristine Milan showroom space is an ode to orthogonal aplomb, all black and white walls intersecting with rhythmical angularity. Not many bells and whistles chez Barrett, not even when it comes to his approach to the feminine side of fashion which is, as he calls it, “straightforward.”“I always start from menswear’s staples and then apply them to feminine shapes,” he explained, presenting his Pre-Fall 2018 collection, which arrives in stores this month. “Every season I try to take one element, one subject from my military vocabulary, doing variations of it within the collection; it could be a greatcoat or a military cape, one masculine pattern reworked in different fabrics in a feminine way.”This season, Barrett put the cape under the magnifying glass. He started by taking the front half of a masculine jacket, which he stretched and folded back to form a sleeve in a single line.Voilà! A half-jacket, half-cape was born. “We cut the jacket up, added the fabric on, then extended it. So, quite simple.” Even if to this reviewer the process sounded quite Houdini-esque, the results were impeccably neat; the ingenious cape-sleeved element gave tuxedos, short column dresses, and shearling jackets a certain fluidity, adding a sense of movement and lightness to their rigorous construction.Elsewhere in the collection, little black dresses in compact black jacquard wool were cut close to the body and emblazoned with a white five-pointed star—a military cross redesigned to become a decorative motif, printed also on crisp oversize shirts, techno-knitted polos, and T-shirts. Ultra-miniskirts with folded pleats and slim-fitted, high-waisted, slit-on-the-back pants highlighted a feminine, quite sexy feel, without detracting from the designer’s signature meticulous, sharp tailoring.
2 May 2018
Were Neil Barrett not doing so well commercially under his own ensign, this show would have acted as an awesome come-and-get-me call to some of the big Parisian houses rumored to be casting around for creative captains. As it is, Barrett has no reason to consider jumping ship. This evening he presented a collection in his brand-new concrete HQ that was both austere and expressive, and which dripped with want-to-wear-them clothes for men and women.The spiel was uniforms. Barrett considered the military-industrial complex’s mass design for men at war as the ultimate progenitor of male uniform, and the couture business’s one-off design for women of leisure as its female counterpart. Via a fair bit of Prada-era-and-beyond self-referencing, he imposed Balenciaga-via-Poiret cocoon fullness onto the back of menswear suiting and military outerwear, and pared back womenswear into gendered cuts of man’s most effective civilian uniform: the suit. These were incredible women’s suits that bore a minimalist, Saint Laurent–touched sharpness. Via leather blousons and sweaters imprinted with the Maltese cross, and corduroy or leather motocross pants for men, which, Barrett noted, were extremely flattering on the butt (a correct observation he sweetly castigated himself for expressing), the designer then crossed the line into military (semi) proper. Trenchcoats with leather gun flaps, women’s submariner knit dresses, and a camouflage jacquard high peacoat were some of the best maneuvers here.
14 January 2018
Were Neil Barrett not doing so well commercially under his own ensign, this show would have acted as an awesome come-and-get-me call to some of the big Parisian houses rumored to be casting around for creative captains. As it is, Barrett has no reason to consider jumping ship. This evening he presented a collection in his brand-new concrete HQ that was both austere and expressive, and which dripped with want-to-wear-them clothes for men and women.The spiel was uniforms. Barrett considered the military-industrial complex’s mass design for men at war as the ultimate progenitor of male uniform, and the couture business’s one-off design for women of leisure as its female counterpart. Via a fair bit of Prada-era-and-beyond self-referencing, he imposed Balenciaga-via-Poiret cocoon fullness onto the back of menswear suiting and military outerwear, and pared back womenswear into gendered cuts of man’s most effective civilian uniform: the suit. These were incredible women’s suits that bore a minimalist, Saint Laurent–touched sharpness. Via leather blousons and sweaters imprinted with the Maltese cross, and corduroy or leather motocross pants for men, which, Barrett noted, were extremely flattering on the butt (a correct observation he sweetly castigated himself for expressing), the designer then crossed the line into military (semi) proper. Trenchcoats with leather gun flaps, women’s submariner knit dresses, and a camouflage jacquard high peacoat were some of the best maneuvers here.
13 January 2018
Neil Barrett is absolutely a fashion designer. Yet unlike many of his peers, he is just as passionately a tailor and a clothier too. Having recently moved to his cool new concrete headquarters on via Ceresio, Barrett now has a space tailored to showcase his exactitude.This mixed men’s and women’s collection displayed an asymmetry in Barrett's vision of both. With some exceptions, womenswear was most often very angular and evening: long black dresses lightly held at the shoulder with irregular serrations of hemline, some in tulle, some in leather. Menswear, in contrast, involved pared-back then buffed-up takes on masculine uniform that were less overt in their specialness—you had to look for it. Suiting was carefully modulated to contrast gently volumized peak lapel jacket with narrower pant, or shirt-lapelled jacket with drop-crotch carrot pant. Denim was sculpted to offer absolutely no suspicion of slouch.Barrett said recently that he only started incorporating graphics when the digital audience seemed to demand eye-candy. Here he kept his candy minimal, with double striping that ran laterally through a mac to a shirt beneath and then out to the other side of the coat again. A womenswear look similarly linked cardigan and boob-tube. Some pieces had wider metallic stripes that looked so utilitarian they recalled municipal workwear. Others featured more involvedly textured panels of greens and russets—some shiny, some matte—that recalled the work of Donald Judd, who was namechecked in Barrett’s press release as an influence on not just this collection but also its new home.Neil Barrett is a club you can join only if you have the eye to recognize it. This fine new headquarters is testament—as was this collection—that Barrett’s strategy is bearing fruit.
17 June 2017
Neil Barrett is absolutely a fashion designer. Yet unlike many of his peers, he is just as passionately a tailor and a clothier too. Having recently moved to his cool new concrete headquarters on via Ceresio, Barrett now has a space tailored to showcase his exactitude.This mixed men’s and women’s collection displayed an asymmetry in Barrett's vision of both. With some exceptions, womenswear was most often very angular and evening: long black dresses lightly held at the shoulder with irregular serrations of hemline, some in tulle, some in leather. Menswear, in contrast, involved pared-back then buffed-up takes on masculine uniform that were less overt in their specialness—you had to look for it. Suiting was carefully modulated to contrast gently volumized peak lapel jacket with narrower pant, or shirt-lapelled jacket with drop-crotch carrot pant. Denim was sculpted to offer absolutely no suspicion of slouch.Barrett said recently that he only started incorporating graphics when the digital audience seemed to demand eye-candy. Here he kept his candy minimal, with double striping that ran laterally through a mac to a shirt beneath and then out to the other side of the coat again. A womenswear look similarly linked cardigan and boob-tube. Some pieces had wider metallic stripes that looked so utilitarian they recalled municipal workwear. Others featured more involvedly textured panels of greens and russets—some shiny, some matte—that recalled the work of Donald Judd, who was namechecked in Barrett’s press release as an influence on not just this collection but also its new home.Neil Barrett is a club you can join only if you have the eye to recognize it. This fine new headquarters is testament—as was this collection—that Barrett’s strategy is bearing fruit.
17 June 2017
Neil Barrett’s paradise was being a student at Central Saint Martins in London: He was blessed with a full bursary, total creative freedom, no responsibility, and London in its earlyish ’80s pomp.“I was so into that subculture,” said Barrett after this show: “The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Echo and the Bunnymen . . . and I had a uniform. I bought an oversize drop-shoulder jacket. I wore it with a kilt—or a skirt—and leggings, and big bovver boots. And I wore it to death.”Barrett’s starting point was thus this period so ingrained in his own experience. Loose of-the-time tailoring, Barrett-ized via signature precision-tooled finishing, was subsidized by detachable skirts fastened within the hems of the jackets above. Sometimes pleated, sometimes more apron than skirt, these extensions were applied to denim and leather jackets, as well as the tailoring. Similarly, a skinny black topcoat worn above a denim jacket—a look Barrett said was a direct tribute to the sensual tribalism of Ray Petri’s Buffalo—was one garment, not two.This was one of Barrett’s first co-ed collections, and the looks segued beautifully. Tailoring, his métier, worked across both genders yet was anything but orthodox. Carefully drafted slices up the side of a woman’s double-breasted overcoat (a lateral vent) were typical of the austerely thoughtful detailing here; that same coat had two ribbed panels at the sleeve. Toward the end, there were pre-emo dresses, including a softy gathered velvet gown worn over velvet-fronted pants. Siouxsie Sioux’s evocative facial contours became the visual icon of the collection, etched onto scarves, trenches, and sweaters. This was a loving flashback, but determinedly future-facing, too.
24 February 2017
Neil Barrett’s paradise was being a student at Central Saint Martins in London: He was blessed with a full bursary, total creative freedom, no responsibility, and London in its earlyish ’80s pomp.“I was so into that subculture,” said Barrett after this show: “The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Echo and the Bunnymen . . . and I had a uniform. I bought an oversize drop-shoulder jacket. I wore it with a kilt—or a skirt—and leggings, and big bovver boots. And I wore it to death.”Barrett’s starting point was thus this period so ingrained in his own experience. Loose of-the-time tailoring, Barrett-ized via signature precision-tooled finishing, was subsidized by detachable skirts fastened within the hems of the jackets above. Sometimes pleated, sometimes more apron than skirt, these extensions were applied to denim and leather jackets, as well as the tailoring. Similarly, a skinny black topcoat worn above a denim jacket—a look Barrett said was a direct tribute to the sensual tribalism of Ray Petri’s Buffalo—was one garment, not two.This was one of Barrett’s first co-ed collections, and the looks segued beautifully. Tailoring, his métier, worked across both genders yet was anything but orthodox. Carefully drafted slices up the side of a woman’s double-breasted overcoat (a lateral vent) were typical of the austerely thoughtful detailing here; that same coat had two ribbed panels at the sleeve. Toward the end, there were pre-emo dresses, including a softy gathered velvet gown worn over velvet-fronted pants. Siouxsie Sioux’s evocative facial contours became the visual icon of the collection, etched onto scarves, trenches, and sweaters. This was a loving flashback, but determinedly future-facing, too.
14 January 2017
Neil Barrettcomes from four generations of British military tailors: “My great-grandfather established a very successful family business providing uniforms for the British Army, the Royal Navy, and the Royal Air Force. My grandfather and my father both followed in his footsteps,” the designer said with obvious pride during his Pre-Fall presentation at his showroom. Apparently he strayed from the family path, trading rigorous discipline for a more glamorous love of fashion and working for Gucci and Prada along the way; yet his tailoring skills are firmly rooted in the exact, precise codes of military attire. “Its severe formality gives you posture and conceals a lot of sins,” explained Barrett.Barrett’s distinctive voice in the menswear arena has a progressive tone peppered with a sharp modernist edge; no wonder that his elegant tailoring is also favored by a cool female audience of connoisseurs that has quietly grown over the years. Now he feels ready to take the big leap: His women’s collection will be shown together with menswear in January during men’s Fashion Week in Milan.For Pre-Fall, Barrett’s challenge was to translate his exacting eye into a lighter approach, practical and sensual at the same time, keeping the attitude dynamic yet sophisticated. He did so by infusing his signature masculine tailoring with subtle, almost elusive cutting techniques to discreetly celebrate the feminine form with gentle appeal. Cropped double-breasted Spencer jackets, impeccable blazers, silk trenches, and short overcoats featured hidden openings to reveal bare arms (possibly well toned) in a practical yet seductive gesture. A free, slightly provocative attitude was suggested through vertical slits that elegantly slashed sleeves at the elbow or forearm, trouser hems, and even the back of a crisp poplin banker’s shirt. This game of slits made for an interesting, versatile look, morphing the shape of a short jacket into a cape, adding practicality as well as dynamic allure, suggesting freedom of movement, and amplifying the wearer’s choice spectrum. “In this collection I’ve played around the ‘double exit’ concept,” Barrett said. As in life, there must always be a way out—and when possible, two are better than one.
16 December 2016
This is stretching the boundaries of conventional fashion reviewing a tad. Yet as this wasNeil Barrett’s womenswear presentation in Milan—model-less, crowd-free, and serene—held relaxingly in his studio with only your author, the designer, his PR, and chief confrere Nicole Phelps, well let’s do it.Without the dynamic of a show to report, it was telling instead to observe Phelps’s interaction with the rail. Phelps was tugged as if by tractor beam to a handsome notch-lapelled doubled-breasted jacket of chambray blue—actually, middleweight Japanese denim—with slits south of the armpit that allowed the wearer to choose between conventional wear or hands-enabled shoulder robing. “This,” she observed with emphasis, “isverycute.” As Barrett explained, visibly gratified through meticulously groomed exactitude as Phelps ran a languorous finger down a pale blue lapel, the jacket is one of three pieces—along with an oversize boyfriend jacket and an elongated version—that comes in three shades of denim, plus suiting fabric, plus a tuxedo finish.Barrett, of course, is a menswear guy. He was the creative thrust behind the conception of Prada menswear, and his own men’s collection is the financial thrust behind his business. It is no surprise that his laser-like ruthlessness at reduction then rebuilding of masculine codes can be applied with equal power to women’s as to men’s.Equally, this collection was a womenswear expansion of the ideas we saw at men’s in June. As Barrett said: “I wanted to take that idea of retro vintage and mix it up with modernist cuts based on Americana.” He integrated the bold, graphic Barrett staple of lightning bolts into references appropriated from his ’70s-heavy, shades-of-brown, action man menswear collection, then layered on an extra filter of rodeo-sourced graphics. “But instead of red, white, and blue, I did red, white, and black,” he said.Striped knits, jacquard jersey dresses, intarsia marquetry-inspired inserts on leather jackets, and biker pants passed before us. Much of it was very cute—especially to my eye, a bolted pleat skirt and a mother-of-pearl–buttoned burgundy suede shirt with graphic details at the shoulders. Some of the graphics were, perhaps, physically prescriptive for the wearer: But that’s fashion. Barrett seems deeply happy to have improved his quality of life by bringing his womenswear back to Milan, Phelps seemed almost as happy to frolic through his rail, and watching their mutual delight made me feel fine, too.
22 September 2016
Retailers repeatedly informally report thatNeil Barrettis hot-to-trot on the rails right now, but it that hot air? Apparently not: “It’s been our best year since we started,” this softly spoken, deeply consistent designer confirmed backstage before this evening’s show. Squinting at the collection that ensued, you could kind of see the intersections of broader taste across Barrett’s own unwavering practice: He incorporates elements of sport and so-called modernist graphics in luxurious fabrications that have a little overlap with the ironic reclamation of early sportswear. But Barrett doesn’t need Cyrillic, and he isn’t a mimic.Today’s brown-heavy, blue and orange–strafed offering was, Barrett winningly revealed, informed by the clothes worn in the American TV shows he’d watched in the UK as a kid. So the opening group of brown blousons and chore coats in calf and suede tipped a wink to the mighty wardrobes ofStarsky & Hutch and Knight Rider. Military shirting with sideways-obtuse buttoning details on the arms and a slightly boxy cut seemed more ’80s navy blockbuster—Top Gun, of course. The sources also dug deep into ’80s sportswear in the knit graphics.So that was the backdrop. Barrett’s processing of it—“always reinterpreted and reinvented, but never revived”—was to take his seriously masculine templates and apply that reinvention via intarsia inserts and marquetry that traced out a variation of his oft touched-on diagonal graphics. The forensic exactitude to Barrett’s delivery generates a warming friction with the putatively relaxed genre of clothing he tends to examine. Said Barrett: “I take it step by step. I don’t really hype myself. I let other people talk.” As we all should.
18 June 2016
Nostalgia is a powerful force. You could say it’stheforce animating contemporary fashion. Among the industry’s most influential designers,Gucci’sAlessandro Micheleis scrolling back to his ’70s and ’80s youth, andVetements’s Demna Gvasalia is grooving on the ’90s. Pick a decade, we’ve seen it before, often more than once. What madeNeil Barrett’s Fall nostalgia trip different is how contemporary it looked. Like at his men’s show, the key pieces in his new women’s lineup were callbacks to treasured items of his own or pieces belonging to his brothers and uncles that he wished he’d had—only the retro connotations were erased. Chalk that up to the military-grade precision with which Barrett designs.A weathered shearling coat was inspired by one his uncle wore, and a tweedy jacket trimmed in shearling was modeled on something from his own closet. The color-blocked track jacket and matching skirt, along with the sporty knit sweaters in the same graphic patterns, connected back to his early obsession with soccer shirts. Even the digital eagle prints on neoprene sweatshirts had a private meaning. Barrett admitted to being a “nerdy” bird-watcher when he was young, and he enlisted an old bird-watching friend of his to take the photos at a bird sanctuary in Dartmoor.As always, the outerwear was particularly strong. The best pieces weren’t motivated by nostalgia, as it turns out, but they were personal. Barrett explained he likes the look of tailored blazers but can’t wear them in winter—too cold. So he cut jackets in coat fabric and then, in a trompe l’oeil tailoring trick, sewed a crombie—or mid-length “coat”—underneath. Barrett used to do that kind of hybridized outerwear five or so years ago, and it was satisfying to see him go back to the well here.
5 March 2016
Surveying the landscape of progressive, sports-sourced 21st-century menswear monochrome rules: Olive, navy, and gray play supporting roles, and any other color is probably branding related. The flash of scarlet on a Supreme logo, the fiery orange lick of a Thrasher logo, etc.Neil Barrettis a rigorous modernist who revels in articulating his finely drafted, wearable sublimations in technologically advanced fabrications—that’s pretty black and white. He’s great, and the clothes are too, but it can feel cold. Tonight, though, Barrett succumbed to a welcomingly warm rush of emotion. A flush of nostalgia. He said: “I really wanted to make it personal.” Barrett looked back, way back, to his 1970s spent in the wildly wet west of England’s Devon—a beautiful county, but quiet. He projected his memories of leafing through NME and being a terrible snob about music—“If it was in the hit parade, I wasn’t interested”—plus the clothes he had and the clothes he wanted. And because this was the U.K. in the 1970s (Barrett was born in 1965), that leads us back to brown—the color of the second Wilson government and power strikes and austerity. Barrett harked back to his earliest, leather heavy collections, too, in an opening section of carefully observed shearling pieces. These were underscored with typically Barrett track pants, brown, in fancy nylon cut short and slim. There were track tops in dense Japanese nylon panelled by modernist shoulder panel extensions. There was color we had never seen before, apparently inspired by his preteen infatuation with soccer shirts. At the end Barrett reverted to type with a bomber and sweatshirt plastered with a digital print of a swooping eagle. But for a while here tonight Barrett was unabashedly British—properly Basil Fawlty—and it was kind of wonderful.
16 January 2016
Navalwear rebuilt for dry land wasNeil Barrett’s premise for Pre-Fall. As a fourth-generation tailor—both his grandfather and great-grandfather were military tailors—the designer has long been dismantling the genre’s precise style, toying with cut, fabric, and time period. The result this season was a tight collection with a glamorous sense of mission.A steely pragmatism was apparent in his emphatic, menswear-inspired outerwear, whether it was a fitted peacoat, a capelike jacket, or a parka. Some of the best pieces had back slits that created a fluid and feminine element. Braiding on epaulets, cuffs, and collars and used as a border on silk dresses and pants put a modern spin on the traditional theme, while brass buttons seemed to underline the strength and durability of Barrett’s classic styles. His fabric experimentations conveyed a sense of order, too. It’s all very well having clothes that suit a multifaceted life, but what if they appear a bit rumpled by it all? Neoprene T-shirts and knit separates were all lovingly produced and cut to go the distance.Glamorized camouflage patterns turned up on culottes, shirting, and bonded bomber jackets, as well as on bold colored knits and even laser-cut leather. There was certainly nothing standard-issue about this lot.
15 December 2015
Many designers are rethinking the way they show their wares to press and buyers this season, andNeil Barrettis among them. In lieu of a jam-packed presentation, the Milan-based Brit hung banners and plastered the floor of his Paris showroom with a camo-meets-kaffiyeh-scarf print, inviting editors one by one to view his entirely colorless Spring collection. Monochromatic, after all, is a tried-and-true signature for the designer (whose women’s lineup remains unapologetically rooted in his menswear background) and the East-meets-West military pattern rings true with his rigorous creations that collide historical references through a linear lens.This time around, Barrett shook up that rigor by way of bold fringing and pleat details on slinky separates and accessories that loosened up his sleeveless tailoring and jacquard outerwear with a sporty élan. Fringes can be fussy, but here, sliced bands of black leather and its vegan alternative (a savvy compromise for washable T-shirt dresses) read punchy and sleek as wide belts and slashed skirt layers, both paired with fanning peplum shirts, graphic minis, or a generous fluid pant. Layered in alternating scales, Barrett’s somewhat militant graphics were softened through their tactile application: Wide cotton weaves and a rich silk jacquard ensured zipped blousons, and bomber jackets held a dressed-down eveningwear potential. Those looks provoked the same twist of tomboy ease he worked into a sleeveless tux jacket thrown over collaged artist tees: The series of three features Picasso, Hockney, and Basquiat’s faces peeking out from under a kaffiyeh. It’s an irreverent remix, and a diabolical sign of the times.
4 October 2015
Neil Barrett's womenswear started as a very calculated transposition of his menswear, hard edges and all. They were clothes for tomboys. But one day every tomboy finds a dress she likes, and a whole new world opens up.You could say all the fringing in Barrett's new Resort collection literally softened the hard edges, but that wouldn't strictly be true. The lines were still as defined, the details as sculpted, the palette as monochrome as ever, and the studded, pierced, stacked-sole oxfords were a boy/girl's dream footwear. Still, therewassomething distinctlyfemininegoing on. Barrett's own description was "lady meets street." One word: bouclé! That most ladylike of yarns was all over this lineup, as an insert on dresses, cut into a biker jacket, with a fringed hem, and worked into a jacquard in the camo pattern that was, Barrett said, "the fantasy, the 'color' of the collection." Another word: ruffles! Or at least the designer's reinterpretation of the idea, with deep folds sculpted from duchesse satin draped over a shift or a skirt. A classic Barrett hybrid was the bomber jacket with the skirt of a coat attached, cut into panels because he felt the movement this allowed was more feminine. In the same vein: cargo pants in knit, softer and more fluid.Yet it's always going to be that refined, almost military precision that seduces Barrett's customers, whatever their gender. One of this collection's early sales successes was the peacoat-cape combination with the tidy little pagoda shoulder. Silhouette in excelsis.
1 July 2015
Funny thing: Neil Barrett's last men's collection so thoroughly revisited his past that he couldn't really go there again. He'd been speaking the same language for so long that it was past time to find something new to say. That could have presented an overwhelming challenge for Barrett, a designer whose strengths always lie in his limits. But he rose to it, road-mapping his future in the process. A win-win.He showed no bombers, sweatshirts, or sweatpants—in his words, "none of what I'm known for." And Barrett did something else he'd never done before, basing his collection on pattern rather than tone. Given that pattern is new for him, it's fearless to collect the most iconic masculine motifs from around the world—camouflage, batik, nautical stripes, and keffiyeh checks, along with animal and kimono prints—and fuse them into new combinations: a keffiyeh Jacquard bisected withmarinièrestripes, for instance, or a hybrid of leopard and batik. "Potential future classics," he confidently called them.The fusion didn't stop with pattern. He also blended the utilitarian spirit of American workwear with the precision of European tailoring. Slouchy, cropped, cuffed jeans were shown with a crisp, printed poplin coat. A keffiyeh-like pattern was woven into a tone-on-tone evening jacket in midnight blue, the accompanying jeans, tuxedo-striped. Barrett may have inherited expertise when it comes to the sharpness of military garb, making him a master of a unique contemporary uniform, but that was a tempting cul-de-sac. Today he found a way out.
20 June 2015
Neil Barrett built his Fall womenswear from the ground up. He started with the pierced punk boots from his men's collection. Then he tried to imagine what Siouxsie Sioux might wear to be interviewed by Penny Martin's erudite biannualThe Gentlewoman. Something punk, but refined. That's really the crux of Barrett's ethos. He likes hard edges and bonded, dry fabrics, but he is also a master of beautiful precision and a technical skill that can transform something as banal as a mod's parka into a must-have. It's almost as though needle-punching was invented for him. Two of the best pieces here were the hooded top half of that parka needle-punched into the bottom half of a tailored overcoat, and then vice versa, with the coat's lapels and the parka's drawstringed tail.Barrett interwove three stories: technical sportswear knits; biker details; and reworked pieces from his menswear. What they had in common was a consciousness of the body. The bikers were cropped in body and sleeve, the outerwear taped with leather or eco-suede to define the form beneath. The dialogue between masculine and feminine elements was Barrett's most sophisticated yet: the softness of an angora sweater with cabled sleeves vs. the substance of an asymmetrical military cape. And all of them in shades of blue and black, "something I've wanted to do for years," said Barrett.His new signature, the Kaboom, looked irresistible splayed across a coat, or woven into a star jacquard. The collection's other major motif was the diagonal inset that bisected short leather skirts. Explosions and slashes? But Barrett himself is such a pussycat. It's just his clothes that have got serious attitude.
7 March 2015
Neil Barrett wants his woman to be one fatal femme. Even the boots he'd given her in his new collection were pierced. But tomboy toughness was the only attitude that really worked with the militant strictness of Barrett's Pre-Fall. He claimed he'd gone back to his menswear roots before he designed for women, and sure enough there was the same hyper-tailored, hard edge, the almost skinhead severity with which he first made an impression over a decade ago. Yet the collection also testified to Barrett's growth as a designer. "Boyish but feminine" was his own take, so for all the fitted little loden jackets, combat pants, and military capes, there were lean, sexy elongated knits, or a tank dress slit thigh-high with knit needle-punched into double-faced crepe. Barrett's technical skill never fails to produce special effects, like the artfully twisted seaming that loaned a bias cut to pants, or the eco-suede that was raw-cut so a pleated skirt was inconceivably thin and light.
19 January 2015
Neil Barrett's evolution as a designer has called for a scalpel-sharp edit of anything that got in the way of his pursuit of precise perfection. It's been an impressively single-minded journey, but ultimately restrictive. That's why the green-shoots feel of his new collection was so encouraging. In fact, Barrett had gone back to move forward—back to his collections in the mid-noughties, when he found enchanting synchronicities between, say, stockbrokers and skinheads, or punks and the Amish. He used to love nothing more than a challenging hybrid.The hybrid that shaped the collection he showed today was his tuxedo army from Fall 2006. Today's first look featured an army bomber in a trompe l'oeil layer over a black coat; the last repeated the same effect in black rayon. In between there were variants on that composite theme—the parka that had khaki gabardine needle-punched to black wool, for instance. But Barrett also experimented with a new kind of composite: 30 percent of the collection was knitwear, with classic pieces, from jean jackets to Crombies, knitted rather than woven to create structured garments of a surprising and seductive softness. This was something new from a designer who has always been about the edge.Mind you, the edge was still there. It was present in the drainpipe trousers that stopped mid-calf above bovver boots (Barrett's genetic predisposition to military tailoring aside, skinhead style may well be his biggest influence) and in the bigkaboom!graphic woven into sweaters or appliquéd onto cropped leather jackets. So the hybrid that gave this collection its kick may well have been something that came into being between Barrett's own past and present. And what comes next? Why, the future, of course.
17 January 2015
Neil Barrett likes to define his collections with a provocative pairing: Fall 2007's Amish Punk is one that springs effortlessly to mind. Today's Classics and Classicism didn't have quite that zing, but it sure nailed the essence of the offering. The classicism manifested in computer-manipulated prints derived from ancient sculpture: Here there was Aphrodite, while it was Apollo for the men's collection Barrett showed in June. He composed an ingenious camouflage print from sculptural fragments.The classic element came from Barrett's attention to a man's wardrobe, feminized with cut and detail. His foundation stone was a mutation of the plain white cotton shirt. Shirttails poked out from under a silver Lurex miniskirt as a trompe l'oeil detail. They detailed the hem of a shift dress in black leather or python. The white shirt itself was extended into a floor-length dress, like the most pristine housecoat you could imagine. A shorter version was reined in tight by a miniskirt in white python, like an extravagant hip-slung cummerbund.The scion of naval tailors, Barrett is the most intensely disciplined of designers. Here, a tightly edited handful of silhouettes was reproduced in white, black, silver and gold Lurex, black leather, and python (both real and as a print on leather, lasered to provide a properly serpentine texture). It made for a cool, tough collection as cold as the marble sculptures the designer was inspired by. It makes you wonder whether there is a big softy somewhere inside Barrett, just clamoring to get out. It would be interesting to meet that person.
27 September 2014
As the scion of a family of military tailors, Neil Barrett knows the meaning of the worddiscipline.The collection he showed tonight was a minor masterpiece of rigor. "Taking an idea and developing it in a tight palette," was how he put it. Every permutation of a handful of fundamental ideas—silhouettes, fabrics, textures, colors—was explored to its limit. There were no surprises. In fact, there was something mechanical about the way the show unfolded. But Barrett defined once and for all what he stands for as a menswear designer. One almost hopes that, from this point on, he picks himself up and points elsewhere, applying his obvious talent to something less predictable and more challenging.And yet, what often becomes evident during a Barrett show is how he actuallyischallenging himself. For instance, there was a subtle focus on denim, never a Barrett staple. And he was thinking about how to make longer lengths work. A play with proportion has always been one of his signatures, but he's never been entirely happy with the result. Here, he popped his bomber jackets over a tabard-like tee, long but zipping open at the sides so hands could find pants pockets with ease. The zip was nickel. That's the kind of detail the designer loves.He's a masterful technician—look at any of his bonded pieces (for some reason, camel always comes to the fore, probably because it's so classic that the idea of bonding it is immediately more radical). And he was very happy about the fact that he'd developed his outerwear to be crease-proof. All those lush suedes and leathers and gabardines could conceivably remain as new until they're tipped into some cosmic landfill in the distant future. Barrett loves the precision, the polish. What would happen if he unhinged? Maybethat'sthe next step.
20 June 2014
Neil Barrett's collections for women have tended to transpose his men's collections across the gender barrier with very little variation. The difference this time was that he had a female muse in mind. Binx Walton is a model of the moment, and when Barrett met her at the Christmas party he cohosted in London withLovemagazine last December, he flipped his wig. Her hard-edged boy/girl thing was the very quintessence of the effect he wanted to achieve with his womenswear. And that's how Binx became the foundation of the collection Barrett presented in Paris today.He softened Binx's hard edges a bit. The facing was extended on coats and jackets. A pleated ruff ran along the bottom of a biker jacket. Another leather jacket had a ruffled front. There were also pleats underneath a classic double-breasted jacket. Barrett wanted to add fluidity to classic masculine garments.Still, it isn't really "soft" where his heart lies. The motif that dominated the collection was the lightning bolt, carried over from the men's collection. Barrett offered it as one big zap on a quilted blouson or as a techno Fair Isle pattern on knit. Continuing with the techno theme, there were op art spots and a photo-realist bear-fur print on sweatshirts. You could almost imagine a world where such an item might replace the real thing. That world already has a name—Gattaca. And Barrett's inside-out reconceptualizations of the classic MA-1 would make a perfect uniform.
28 February 2014
A collection's progress from conception to execution is really only half of its journey. After that, it enters the great big world. What happens to it there is out of a designer's hands, but a smart one will pay attention. Neil Barrett is one who does. He had a hit on his hands last fall with his statement sweatshirts, so he's repeated the trick every season since. But he noticed when the previous Fall collection was bought and worn that young guys chose to wear those sweatshirts as fully fledged outerwear, sans coat or jacket. Lo and behold, that's how he showed them tonight.It's not that he didn't show coats. On the contrary, there were marbled-leather toggle coats, coats in ombré that resembled Rothko canvases, and a stunning one that seemed to bleed from leather to suede. (It was, in fact, one giant skin with different treatments.) They too had been through the Neil Barrett Lab. Two years ago, Barrett had a hit with his exaggeratedly A-line military coats. Some were stiff and wide enough to look like the Liberty Bell. But he'd taken stock of how they worked—not in the studio, but in the store and, as importantly, in the closet. What walked the runway tonight was the evolution of what began then. "You have to make it more real," he said. "By living it, you understand what's right for you and your brand."Then, expand; now, contract. It was perhaps the contraction of those earlier ideas that gave the collection its from-concentrate tang. There was a long procession of clothes that will look good in stores. The ombré pieces (great in black to blue; good in shades of brown) come to mind, and the guys who loved the geometric-paneled sweatshirts Barrett introduced last season will cotton to the lightning-clap versions here, the best with leather bolts pieced into the fabric itself. They all sat large (Barrett loves big, bouncy bonded fabrics) atop what was basically a single pant silhouette: slim, cropped, sometimes cuffed with sweatpant ribbing. By necessity, this collection didn't have the shock that some of the designer's best do. But by the cyclical law of the process, that may be the next round's privilege. This one read wearable. Which Neil knows firsthand is not the easiest thing to achieve. He's not just the president; he's a client, too, and this is how he wants to dress. "And," he added, "I have more trouble dressing myself than anyone else."
10 January 2014
The lounge chair and ottoman designed by Charles and Ray Eames in the 1950s are just about as iconic as pieces of furniture can be. Theyve been an inspiration for generations of creative minds. There they sat, for instance, in Neil Barretts showroom today as a reminder of where his latest collection started out. California Minimalism, he called it, but just as the Eames chair has a luxurious edge to its functional form, Barretts strong, pared-down sportswear was almost extravagant in its intense detailing. A sweatshirt cut from ponyskin doesnt immediately murmur spring, but Barrett aerated his with a million tiny perforations, cooling it down. Aeration also lightened the sweatshirt collages of leather, neoprene, and mesh, which he shaped in curving patterns based on the Eameses ergonomic lines. There was lightness, too, in the feathers—real and printed—that were the collections visual motif.The sweatshirt, the skating skirt, the bicycle short: They were the collections athletic building blocks. White, black, scarlet, gray marl: The color scheme was equally straightforward. The interest came from Barretts attention to texture, the way that wood-grain-printed leather contoured the line of a jacket or the length of a leg, or bonded ribbing added spring to the flare of a skirt. Barrett used real wood in the striking accessories, screwing a substantial wooden heel into the base of a shoe, and molding the bottom of a bag in the same way that the Eameses lounge chair was shaped by molded plywood.
27 September 2013
Neil Barrett is resolute in the amalgamation of his collections for men and women. That much was crystal clear this season, when he showed menswear and Resort within days of each other. The technical theme for both was bonded fabrics, and the dominant visual motif was an exploded lumberjack check in classic black and red, or black and white. In a way, it was creative pragmatism—Barrett is very specific about his fabrics, and the bigger the fabric order he can place, the better chance there is that Italy's legendary mills will be able to satisfy his specificity.Of course, there's more to it than that. Barrett's incredible technical precision and his own natural affection for androgyny mean that the collections shared a rigor and a purity bordering on severity, which were amplified by the styling for his Resort lookbook. A striped tee, Bermudas, black shoes, and socks—nothing about that outfit said "girl." A bonded leather tee and vertically striped trousers? Same thing, although he had very considerately given the pants an elasticized waistband so they were "supereasy for my woman to get into."And yet here was Barrett describing his Resort line as "more girly than my main line." Perhaps the purely feminine as it plays out for Barrett really did mean a cape-back leather coat-dress bonded with jersey, or a skirt in navy crepe with a leather panel to keep it flat in front ("I don't like creases," declared the designer). The minimalism of a bonded top matched to a skirt in a corded fabric was almost intimidatingly strict. But the cumulative impact of the collection was curiously sensual. Maybe it was in the movement of the clothes, the diagonal swoop of a T-shirt dress, the swing of those cape-backs. If there is a lot of tension in Barrett's clothes, there is also release. Or it could be that Barrett's absolute conviction was, in the end, as seductive as the flash of lustrous red pony trimmed into a printed check miniskirt.
24 June 2013
Last Fall, he was capturing the Bauhaus, but for Spring, Neil Barrett conjured up a lighter, friendlier modernism. He expressed a sympathy with the fifties California minimalism of people like Charles and Ray Eames, whose bubbled, organic shapes Barrett reproduced on jackets and tops. Those swooping circles were minimalism with the sharp edges sheared off, which would serve just as well as a tag for the entire collection: If it was hard or sharp, it went. Look through the entire lineup and you'd spot not a single fastening or snap: Jackets held together magnetically; many of the foamy, cotton-jersey shorts were elasticized; pants were tapered with covered scuba zips; and shirts buttoned to the top with a hidden closure. Those were the rare ones that evenhadcollars. For the most part, Barrett had dispensed with them as a mere formality and inconvenience. "I don't like having anything around my neck in the summer," he said.The collection split the difference between casual and precise—right down to the models' spackled hair. "It's the whole idea of taking what's super-easy, super-wearable—American street wear—and making it superfine," Barrett said. "Everything's about paring it back, making it super-minimal." The printed and woven patterns, macro and mega-macro versions of lumberjack plaids in black and white and red, represented the maximal road less taken. ("Maximal" must be the word for what Barrett was calling "men's bouclé.") They had a graphic appeal, but on the whole, less was more. The simple, techy shorts, trousers, jackets, and lab coats in their stony palette harked back to the best of what Barrett does best.
21 June 2013
The more convincing Neil Barrett tried to be about the essential minimalism of his clothes, the more the subtly intense luxury of his new collection contradicted him. Of course, minimalism and luxury aren't mutually exclusive. You only have to use fabrics as lush as the caramel-colored pony that Barrett cropped into a precise little jacket, or the double-face rayon whose rich, dry hand turned a plain old blouson into a thing of gotta-have-it beauty.But Barrett's collection was about so much more than fabulous fabric. Minimalism be damned, there was a wealth of detail here. The hand-stitched leather ribbing on the cuffs and hem of that pony jacket; the ruff of plissé sneaking out from under an irregularly pleated pelmet skirt; the quilted leather chevrons on a blouson; the bonded velvet on a sweatshirt…they were artful touches that highlighted the difference a genuine design sensibility can make to an ordinary piece of clothing. "As much texture as I can include in a neutral, contained palette," was the designer's own measured rationale for a piece as complex as the biker that combined pony, leather, and wool in a geometric collage, or the fencing-vest-like breastplate in off-white python that he laid under a white coat in boiled wool. That breastplate was actually a trompe l'oeil insert that was Velcro-ed under the coat, in the same way that a trompe l'oeil skirt appeared under a cinched coat, or a lapel "scarf" was layered under another coat. Sounds tricksy, but it looked great.It's always Barrett's ambition with his women's collection to prove that he can literally transpose his menswear. That he succeeded so well this season obviously had something to do with the fact that he was coming off such a strong offering for men, but it ultimately had more to do with the gender-immaterial power of the pieces themselves. He claimed "minimal" and "modernist," but "deluxe seduction" rang truer.
1 March 2013
"I don't like to be visual. I like to be graphic," said Neil Barrett after his show. That's a heavy one for a designer to lob across the plate, but when you rolled it around your skull for a bit, it started to make a kind of sense. Drilling down is the Barrett mode. Distill, baby, distill!"Visual" can be showy, and Barrett, but for the occasional Bauhaus sweatshirt, isn't that. He's happy to show less when less will do. He made a point in his show notes that this season included one boot and one shoe. The showroom, one imagines, harbors more. But the runway message, even over the course of a long show, was knife-edge honed. The pants, cropped and tapered, are a familiar label piece—this season, they came with tab flaps at the ankle. The covetable coats here were descendants of the covetable coats from last Fall (and there were a few of those in the audience tonight). This year's model belted from the outside to the body to give a sinuous new shape. Structure, Precision, Texture were Barrett's Fall '13 edicts. Yes, they always are, he admitted, "but I'm trying to up the bar," he said.And so he upped—and upped, and away. Barrett explained that he'd been thinking both of the Bauhaus and the nineties, pare-back times. He's hardly the only designer thinking about sportswear and how it might profitably infest dress, but he's the only one who went so far as to ban shirt collars from his show. Take a look—not a one. They've been banished, as have fasteners and fixers. The breastplate vests Barrett showed with many looks had fencing-jacket fronts and waistcoat backs, but not a button or a buckle in sight. Not visual, graphic. The secret ingredient was Velcro: "Super easy!" Barrett bragged.
11 January 2013
"Sloppy couture." It mightn't be the most attractive way to describe Neil Barrett's latest collection, but knocking ideas around with the designer in his showroom today, it seemed to fit his combination of acute cut, deluxe fabrications, and extreme sportiness. Never mind those ginormous, sweeping skirt-style pants that Barrett showed, you need to picture a sweatshirt with a sack back, basketball shorts in silk crepe de chine, a perforated leather tank. Then, at the other end of the spectrum, Barrett applied his tailoring expertise to a silk crepe jacket so reduced to its essence that it weighed almostnada. In his signature hybridization of masculine and feminine, he cut an eensy jean jacket out of feather-light kangaroo, and the ultimately male Harrington jacket showed up in iridescent leather.Barrett is a specialist in the supremely reductive gesture. The biker with the leather body had sleeves in a super-stretch, attenuating the silhouette in an easy way. A blouson in ponyskin had a stripe bleached down its back, like the one you might find running down the leg of tuxedo pants, only jagged. That same stripe also showed up on a trouser leg and on the silk faille front of a sweatshirt. There is something about a jagged edge that defines Barrett's aesthetic: rigorous, slightly dangerous, and like the 1985 movie of the same name, all about obsession.
28 September 2012
"I have to do things in a masculine way." Astonishing how rare a sentiment this can be at a men's fashion week. But Neil Barrett makes no apologies. His Spring collection was a case study in fluidity made manly. The season has already sent several designers into a tailspin chasing lightness, often ending up in realms of soft nonsense. Not him. Barrett begins designing at the fabric level, a practice that costs him some eight to nine months in planning and nets him immeasurable reward. It's been a season of shorts, but Barrett's, swinging around his models' legs, managed to feel anything but swishy. He chalked it up to the fiber blends he tests and re-tests, rayon-Cupros and rayon-viscoses.Guys and sport go hand in hand—at least according to a certain logic—and there was a strong athletic bent to the collection, with its varsity jackets, baseball jerseys, basketball shorts, and gym-class sweatshirts in cocooning neoprene. That also meant it skewed young. But picked apart, there was plenty for an older crowd—say, a designer customer base—to pick up. Barrett's obsessiveness pays dividends. His take on a regatta stripe is a case in point. He wove a version of it in fabric, then photographed and digitized it to create a print. Not happy stopping there, he sent the lot to a couture fabric mill (he won't say which) to weave into a degradé jacquard. Up close, it looked like it had been scratched by claws. "It has to be a bit fucked up," Barrett said. Tough talk. But the gray skies withheld rain until the moment the last look left the open-air runway. There's no surefire key to the will of the gods, but it's hard not to read something into that.
22 June 2012
"Neil Barrett should be better known than he is," said a fellow editor after the designer's presentation today. We'd agree with that. Barrett is a top-notch tailor, capable of synthesizing the trends without being obvious about it. For Fall, he's gone oversize as other designers have, cutting crombies, duffels, and even furs in the generous, rounded proportions of mid-century haute couture. "It's like taking XXXL men's sizes and cutting them back onto girls," he said of the process that lent the coats such dramatic shapes. They gave good profile as the models marched past in the Rue du Mail showroom. Sweatshirts and sweaters were scaled up too, and an engineered wool chalk-stripe dress had extra volume in back.His suits, in contrast, remained streamlined. One pair of pants was made from a wool loomed together from a check and a tiny houndstooth. Somewhere around the knees the two patterns melted together. "It's my answer to embellishment," he said, "and it makes it harder to copy." The copy artists shouldn't even bother with a military coat designed so you can wear it over your shoulders without it slipping off. Its clever inner vest construction is High Street-proof.
2 March 2012
Is the man of mode ready for a cape? Come Fall, his resolve will be tested. Designers all over Milan have been draping cloaks over their models. In his way, Neil Barrett did, too, though you could've missed them with a quick look. The standout outerwear pieces at Barrett's renewedly strong show ("return to form" was on the lips of more than one editor) weren't technically capes, rather military-inspired greatcoats, some with leather-taped seams. But with their A-line cuts and high pockets, they formed gentle bells around their marching soldiers, artfully suggesting the incipient trend while remaining steadfastly approachable, even for a more timid soul than the editors crowding the spectators' bench.Slipping the sartorial mickey is a Barrett specialty. He is devoted to his particular enthusiasms—ultra-precise tailoring, for one—but he works them into an idiom that goes down easier than big-F fashion often does. You had to peer closely (often more closely than a runway walk allowed) to see the way he melted suiting patterns into one another down the length of a pant or a jacket, merging houndstooth into chevron and Prince of Wales to tweed. From afar, they just looked gray. The proverbial Man in the Flannel Suit is in for a surprise when he gets his home.There were cropped trousers in multiple variations, many cut so tight they required ankle zips. (More forgiving versions had banded sweatpants cuffs.) If the high-water theme was hammered home a time or two too many, it was easy to forgive: the easier to see Barrett's covetable ankle boots.
13 January 2012
Neil Barrett's big idea this season was to enlarge traditional patterns—houndstooth, Prince of Wales check, marinière stripes—and to distort them. "Unraveling" is how he described it at his Rue du Mail presentation, but that might be a bit of an overstatement. Barrett is a controlled designer, and bless him for it.Anyone who saw his menswear collection for Spring will recognize the oversize silvery gray houndstooth arranged graphically on a black shift, as if the pattern only "took" in certain places. Herringbone chevrons similarly disintegrated down a pair of fluid trousers, while marinière stripes spilled off a flowy dress with a high slit and built-in shorts.Fluid, flowy. The words strike fear in the hearts of longtime Barrett fans who live for his rigorous tailoring. It was here, too, in the form of jackets cut from spongy neoprene covered in net. The surprise, though, was how confident the looser and easier stuff looked.
30 September 2011
Coming from a long line of naval tailors, Neil Barrett has the cut in his blood. There is always a military precision in the way he creates new hybrids from his influences. This season, for instance, he blended army fatigues, biker leathers, and the natty houndstooths and herringbones of the 2 Tone ska revival. Then he shrunk and cropped the whole lot to Barrett's signature proportions and sat it on top of chunky cyber-bovver sandals. Some of the combinations looked completely natural, like the tan trench or wool blazer hybridized with a motocross jacket, or the biker vest with the army green cotton back. They were the most convincing. Other pairings were less so. True, within the mandate of the collection, a leather-patched aviator jacket over houndstooth shorts was logical enough. Likewise, the herringbone blouson with the cropped pants.But at some point, Barrett's signature has become a formula. It may have made him the go-to guy for composite iterations of Youth Cults We Have Known and Loved, but it's boxed him into a corner. Oddly enough, as his hybrids whizzed past to one of his typically fabulous soundtracks (always among Milan's best), the thought occurred that help may be at hand in the form of Barrett's genetic legacy. Gallingly conventional though it would probably seem to him, a purely sartorial collection—minus the crop and the shrink—would highlight his skill, his taste, and his instinct for what makes a man look hot. Or cool. Or maybe just good.
17 June 2011
You don't have to be a size zero to wear Neil Barrett anymore. After last season's second-skin silhouettes, Fall is more relaxed, at least in parts. Pleated pants cropped and cuffed above the ankles qualify as the most forgiving trouser shape Barrett's ever done. He showed one pair with a cropped double-breasted blazer, and the other with a dress coat, the notches of the lapel lowered to the waist. Note the colors, too. Blush, nude, khaki, chestnut brown—when have you ever seen those here before? The designer is also experimenting with a kind of doubled construction that pairs a clingy, scuba-tight under layer with a more sculptural top layer—bonded leather for a cropped jacket, say, or a nubbly wool for an overcoat. The interesting thing is that the top layer is cut out in parts to reveal the inner one. Barrett will always be a dyed-in-the-double-face-wool minimalist, but kidassia goat fur added a seductive note to the fitted blazers he's known for.More proof that it's a new day at Barrett: He showed a trio of black floor-length dresses. The most interesting was draped to the waist in front and had a bare back with a butterscotch leather belt-cum-corset peeking out. It summed up Barrett's new soft side without letting you forget about the tough side that you loved first.
6 March 2011
Neil Barretthas always been the most body-conscious of designers, and neoprene offers such a straightforward way for him to define the male form that taking scuba as the starting point for his Fall 2011 collection could almost seemtooeasy. But the other half of Barrett's aesthetic is shaped by his family heritage, with a father and grandfather who were military tailors. You can see that background in his silhouettes, as precise as a uniform, as well as in his parkas and peacoats. Today he incorporated his two sides to produce a collection that was less single-minded than usual. At the outset, the scuba leggings underpinned sharply tailored upper halves to create the kind of active, urgent silhouette that Barrett loves. But how much more interesting things got when he pumped up the volume with baggy, cropped, cuffed pants paired with a more generously cut jacket. He claimed the trousers were inspired by sailor pants, but the result looked like the demob suits that his grandfather might have cut for soldiers leaving the military in the late forties. It was an attractive, masculine proportion, and it even took on a degree of elegance when Barrett banded it in different shades of gray. He extended the sailor theme into marine-striped knits collaged into sweaters and a long cardigan coat, which also offered a new volume for him. The handful of women's outfits Barrett showed had a leathered, feathered edge of hard glamour.
17 January 2011
Arne Quinze, a Belgian artist known for his raw wood sculpture, provided the graphic motif for Neil Barrett's awl-sharp lineup. In its simplest manifestation, it appeared as stripes of black on a white T-shirt worn underneath a pantsuit. But it also turned up as bands of sheer and opaque stretch fabric on a sleeveless bodysuit, and again as lizard-stamped stretch leather spliced into second-skin camel pants.A longtime menswear designer, Barrett used to be the guy to go to for a boyish suit and washed leather motorcycle jackets. He still had those in spades today, but after upping the sexy quotient last season and seeing it pay dividends—he landed great new accounts, like Joseph and L'Eclaireur—he's gone even further in the body-conscious direction. What was interesting to see was how the designer incorporated some of his tailoring tricks into his dresses. Shoulder pads do the same waist-slimming wonders on a sleeveless sheath as they do on a blazer. Even cooler, Barrett made them into a design element by covering them with contrasting fabric: black leather, say, on a camel cady stretch dress. It's no wonder his women's business is growing.
4 October 2010
Neil Barrett used to look as neat and precise as a pin, but since he showed a creased suit in his Fall collection, he's fallen in love with the wrinkle. "I'm doing creases on everything," he said of his Spring lineup. "They're so low maintenance. And you look thin, because creasing attaches to your body."Leanness has always been something of an obsession with this designer, as it was for the mods and the punks, the youth cults whose style he often mines in his work. Here, he attached the split tail of the mod parka to elongated shirts and tees, the volume of which rather counteracted the skinny effect. But if Barrett isn't obsessed with all things slim anymore, he hasn't given up on athleticism. All the trousers in the collection were sweatpants-style, and the lack of sleeves injected a hearty dose of physicality. There was a definite sense of his clothes relaxing. The designer even came up with his version of surface decoration—he made biker patches in fabric, leather, or suede and stuck them on jackets, tees, pants, and coats. As for the hybrid element that he's so attached to, he kept it to the footwear for Spring, chopping together a desert boot and a jelly sandal and rendering the result in royal blue suede. It looked like a candidate for shoe of the season.
20 June 2010
"It's the first time I've made girls sexy," said Neil Barrett as he steered visitors around his installation in a Left Bank gallery. What he meant was that his collection of womenswear was no longer a straight gender-bending crossover from his men's collection. Barrett used the same hybrid theme as his men's show, but a peacoat front attached to a biker jacket back actually seemed like a more workable proposition for women because of his mastery of shape. Likewise the tube skirt with the peacoat upper half. Barrett is a true believer in black and white monochrome, but he's equally convinced that it is only leather that can make monochrome come alive, so the collection made full use of skins. There was a half-leather, half-melton coat; an oversize leather tee that could do double duty as a dress; and leather pants backed with jersey, which were, Barrett said, the consummate combination of texture and tightness. (The versions in stretch python came a very close second.) The designer's love of a second-skin fit means his womenswear isn't kind. That is simply a reflection of the punk crucible in which Barrett's aesthetic was formed: His tees with the Nick Cave graphic certainly testified to his affection for the bad old days. But there were still some exceptional pieces—like the sleeveless shearling gilet or the washed-leather biker jacket with a luxuriantly quilted lining—that offered enticement to those who aren't as wand-slender as Barrett himself.
3 March 2010
Style.com did not review the Fall 2010 menswear collections. Please enjoy the photos, and stay tuned for our complete coverage of the Spring 2011 collections, including reviews of each show by Tim Blanks.
16 January 2010
Bringing out the guy in every girl is how Neil Barrett, he of the robust men's business, defines his approach to womenswear. And for a certain kind of suit-loving gal, Barrett's exacting tailoring and slouchy knits are perfection. He made good on his established MO for Spring while delivering some newness in the process. On-message double-breasted jackets, one or two in soft yet structured jersey, were a timely addition to his repertoire. He loves working with leather, but this season, instead of washing it and cutting it into his covetable bombers, he bonded fine layers to suiting fabric and knits. An elongated waistcoat—buttons, pockets, and all covered in hide—was the most interesting result of that process. Also newsworthy: A collaboration with Herno, the Italian luxury sportswear maker, produced a few weightless leather macs. Barrett fans and the uninitiated alike will find those hard to resist.
23 September 2009
If you want the essence of Spring 2009 on Milan's catwalks, you could look to the title Neil Barrett gave his latest collection: Sartorial Gymnast. Barrett has always loved a hybrid—recent themes include Tuxedo Ski and Visconti Punk—and he was originally going to call this one "Breton Gymnast." Brittany lingered on in the navy striped blazer over striped tee toward the end of the show, but "Sartorial" made more sense, considering how fundamental extreme tailoring is to the Barrett ethos. The designer took Milan's current fusion of sportiness and formalwear to a logical extreme by making high-performance jersey fabrics the foundation of the collection—for jackets, pants, even a peacoat. Barrett can be an unforgiving body-con, but the material gave his signature leanness a little leeway. And the iconography of gymnastics introduced some appealing new visual elements into his vocabulary, primarily the graphic color scheme. It was intriguing to see how effortlessly Barrett's inspiration dovetailed, once again, with his own particular style fixations. Who knew that gymnasts and skinheads had so much in common? The collection also left us with another cliff-hanger for next spring: Will real men take to stirrup pants?
21 June 2008
The innate body consciousness of skiwear makes it a natural fit for Neil Barrett, who opened his latest collection with a skier's salopette paired with a tux shirt (bow tie, natch), topped with one of his signature parkas. Thus were the elements that have defined Barrett's distinctive perspective drawn into one strand. Think of it as formal actionwear for the urban warrior. "Tuxedo ski," he called it this time around, but the notion could apply equally to the Visconti Punk collection the designer showed last season. Backstage, the blissfully attached Barrett insisted, "I still want to pull" (as in, "drag a willing victim into my sexual orbit"). So he, as usual, shrank his leathers, cut and trimmed his proportions, and pared away the superfluity, leaving a sexy sleekness.But the designer is selling himself short, because there is more to Barrett than "pulling." The ingenuity with which he layers outerwear, for instance: a quilted jacket over a cloth coat, a shearling over a suit jacket, a faux waistcoat attached to a parka (that piece has become something of a signature look). His affection for the style tribes of his native England also threads through his career. This season, the salopette offered him an unexpected variant on the suspenders favored by skinheads, to be worn over the shoulder, or dangling groundward. The effect was studiedly casual, but all the more edgy for it, and it reached critical mass when Barrett marched his models down the catwalk like his very own tribe. The day before his show, he announced a Japanese deal to encourage expansion in the East. There may be no revolution in his aesthetic, but there is an unstoppably steady evolution.
12 January 2008
You could say that Neil Barrett farms one field, but he does it so well that he always gets a good crop. The seeds he sows are punk attitude and custom-made craft, and together they produce immaculate clothes with enough edginess to satisfy a growing global clientele. But the title of this season's collection—"Visconti Punk"—promised more than it ultimately delivered. The latter element was obvious in the loosely woven mohair sweaters and the studded leather jackets, biker vests, and shoes worn sockless. Visconti's aristocratic elegance was more elusive, merely implied in the formality of Barrett's signature tailoring.Still, the designer managed to hone his proposition to its peak thus far. He softened his signature shrunken proportions so that even when trousers were cropped, they were more generously cut, as were the jackets. And the reductive precision of punk style meant that Barrett's layering (pinstripe waistcoat over gray sweater over white shirt) had a laser sharpness. He sidestepped into the nylon-shorts-with-tailored-top cul-de-sac that has peculiarly gripped Milan's imagination this season, but redeemed himself with a white jacket and waistcoat paired with zippered tan trousers. The formal upper and edgy lower were the quintessence of the Barrett ethos. And kudos to a soundtrack that ranged from an obscure Adam & the Ants track to the almost-forgotten Spear of Destiny. Ah, the memories.
23 June 2007
This collection marked Neil Barrett's second time showing womenswear on the runway—though like his fellow cult-inspiring men's designers, he has in fact been dressing the fairer sex for much longer simply by cutting his coolly tailored clothes into smaller sizes. This season, however, he decided not to translate his considerable talent for menswear quite so literally. In short, he wanted to give the ladies something of their own.As admirable a sentiment as that might be, in practice it didn't really work out. In a severe palette of black, gray, and white, Barrett explored the idea of sculpted tailoring that stood away from the body, the result of hearing complaints from girlfriends about the limitations of stricter cuts. That meant boxy jackets with bracelet sleeves, pleated wide trousers, and cocoon coats, which, though executed well, seemed more likely to appeal to an older customer than the one Barrett targets. The result was that his fans were left wanting more. "Nowthat'swhat I like from him," whispered a young but influential stylist as a little motorcycle jacket in a chic dark-gray leather and slim pants finally passed by.
7 February 2007
You could reasonably say that the essence of Neil Barrett's design career is duality. Last time around, his collection was a mash-up of stockbroker and skinhead. Before that, it was white-tails toff and khaki-clad grunt. For his latest collection, Barrett has imagined a face-off between Amish and punk, with one white catwalk and one black catwalk to underscore the distinction. And guess what? They weren't as far apart as you might think, mainly because Barrett always focuses on hermetic subcultures with precisely defined stylistic codes. So the starched white button-down, the plaid work shirt, and the sober black coat of the Amish man actually dovetailed quite neatly with the punk ethos. And by the time Barrett had planted an Amish hat on top of an ensemble that matched a snug little back-laced leather blouson to skinny trousers tucked into bovver boots, he had a look that was 100 percent Droog, which, in its subversively graphic maleness, is actually the closest to his lean, mean ideal.Certain exceptions aside, however, with this collection Barrett finally edged away from leanness, showing gray flannel trousers that were positively generous in their dimensions. He also displayed a finely honed sense of subtle ostentation with his judicious use of metallics, like the silver detailing on the shirt under a gray flannel suit, or the silver shoes and tie (even better, silver jeans, though they were hardly subtle). The nocturnal sheen of such items underscored another of Barrett's signatures: the injection of elements of formal dress into everyday wear. The Amish would grasp the self-discipline of such a notion in a flash.
14 January 2007
A banker and a skinhead aren't immediately obvious bunk mates, but Neil Barrett explored their unlikely compatibility in his latest collection. What they share is a crisp and codified precision in their approach to dressing, which dovetails with Barrett's own taste for a neat, tight silhouette. He combined the various tokens of boardroom and barroom to create a personal hybrid, and it was intriguing to see how much crossover there was between the two radically different worlds. The skin's pocket chain could easily pass as a banker's fob. And the affection both tribes feel for suspenders gave Barrett a signature graphic for the collection: They were printed front and back on shirts. (To complete the trompe l'oeil effect, another shirt was also printed with a city tie.)The banker's iconic striped shirt was shown sleeveless (shades of Pete Doherty as dressed by Hedi Slimane), and the pinstriped pants with which it was paired were cropped and tight, another reference to skin style. Equally shrunken was a banker's waistcoat, adapted here in washed black leather and worn with white linen–cotton jeans and the designer's boxing-style take on the Doc Marten boot (literally the foundation of a skin's wardrobe). Barrett's white-laced boots aren't for everyone, and you could argue that he worked the high/low dichotomy to more seductive effect for fall, but this collection still represented a consistently engaging—and timely—clash of the formal and funked-up.
26 June 2006
Neil Barrett couldn't have picked a better moment to debut his women's collection. Suits are in the ascendancy, and this Milan-based British menswear designer cuts a mean one. For fall, he worked two themes: formal eveningwear and the army. That translated into trim black coats inset with satin cummerbunds (a timely detail given fashion's ongoing obsession with the waist), curving pencil skirts with tuxedo stripes, and lapel-less jackets, all tailored with a military precision. Slim pants with a sexy swagger were a highpoint, especially for those of us who miss Helmut Lang. Structure is Barrett's calling card, but he didn't lose his sense for proportions when he did soft, belting a boat-neck sweater over a flaring double-layer skirt. His last look—a pleated cocktail dress with a trompe l'oeil effect—was the most feminine of the bunch, perhaps indicating where this talented designer will take his womenswear next.
6 February 2006
The defining element of Neil Barrett's fall collection was something that looked like the rear section of a tailcoat attached to a cummerbund. Aside from offering an effortless way to dress up any old pair of pants, there was a mildly subversive aspect to this item. It was like a bespoke version of the "bum-flap" Vivienne Westwood used to hang off her bondage trousers.In fact, mild subversion seemed to be a theme of Barrett's collection. His collision of army fatigues and elegant eveningwear sounds arch and contrived on paper, but on the catwalk, it made for a surprisingly compatible and chic effect. Military uniforms are, after all, the root of all men's tailoring, and Barrett has already proved his expertise in that arena, as evidenced here by the superb cut of an epauletted overcoat. His particular conceit this time round meant that a field jacket showed with tails, while an army-brown blazer had lapels trimmed with satin, just like a proper tux. A tie was camouflage-patterned, shirts bore a lieutenant general's three stars, olive-drab trousers were satin-striped—again, just like a tux.Antony Price once cooked up this kind of idea for Bryan Ferry in the heyday of Roxy Music, but Barrett aligned himself to the leaner, meaner present with a blast of Franz Ferdinand. The U.K.'s favorite art rockers would surely have been seduced by a streamlined outfit that encompassed shirt, trousers, bow tie, and those omnipresent cummerbund tails, all in a pleasantly sinister black.
16 January 2006
The fix is in—the big story for spring 2006 in Milan is shorts, which is a blessing for a designer as naturally inclined to shrunken proportions as Neil Barrett. Sure enough, his show resolutely bared the leg (complete with shoes worn sockless, of course). But the dominant theme of Barrett's latest collection was a commingling of formal and casual dressing. This meant a sight as discombobulating as a cropped evening jacket over a pair of tuxedo-striped shorts, the waist wrapped with a satin cummerbund, the neck collared with a bow tie. The general effect was that of a little boy all dressed up for a gala at the Met (or perhaps Eddie Munster prepped for the prom). Barrett showed some more straightforward variations on the theme, such as a white evening jacket over worn jeans and a denim jacket done right up to a bow-tied neck, but even here the tricksy styling flourishes (trop de bow ties!) detracted from the designer's essential and very real strength, which is a knack for pared-down tailoring. One promising side effect of Barrett's current direction: the womenswear he showed alongside the men's explored the same theme but in a much more successful—and seductive—way.
27 June 2005
Of late, Neil Barrett has become the designer of choice for a clutch of male Hollywood stars who wear his clothes for their press junkets. Now Brad, Orlando, and Jake have indirectly returned the favor by inspiring him—or, at least, giving him the confidence—to make a Fashion Statement on the runway.For fall, that entailed a notion he labeled "dressed up in a beaten-up way." Substantial fabrics—flannels, wools, velvets, even leathers—were washed within an inch of their lives and cropped into shrunken coats, jackets, and pants, to create a short-sleeved, short-trousered silhouette that's shaping up as one of the season's stories. The designer says it's always been part of his repertoire, but only recently has he had the guts to make such a meal of it. No wonder—it's an uncompromising proposition.Barrett, though, had fun with the idea. Pants had side-zipped seams or English "bovver boy" suspenders. Jackets came layered or subtly dip-dyed at the hem. The shrinkage created interesting textures and, more to the point, lent the clothes a worn-in feel that suggested a backstory. Barrett isn't alone in thinking such a thing is an asset (his old boss Miuccia Prada is of the same mind). But for those who prefer to look dressed up, rather than beaten up (or worn in), Barrett also showed a handful of tailored knits—a biker jacket, a belted cardigan coat—that were plain old chic.
18 January 2005