Bottega Veneta Spring 09……………………………………………Dries VanNoten Spring 09

Many of the silhouettes for Menswear Spring 09 in Europe had that Great Gatsby era style to it, but more modern. One designer, Dries VanNoten, said, “I want him to be dapper, not dandy.” Mission accomplished.

Prada Spring 09…………………..Junya Watanabe Spring 09

At the same time, designers played with proportions in the length of the pant, the size of the jacket, additional volume mostly with the pants but also with some jackets, socks are an important accessory and up to the knees (as well as argyle), and then this year designers took a page out of women’s collections and gussied up the shoes to match the jacket, the shirt, or the sweater through all manner of technique.

John Galliano Spring 09

The sum total of it all for me was that men will, though serious as always, be letting their fun side show this spring.

Moschino Spring 09

I don’t know if this means designers are planning for the recession to be over or for men to be needing some other form of self expression because let’s face it, the world-wide economic situation will have taken its mighty toll by Spring 09. Perhaps it’s just that men will finally let their hair down, and wear their pants up, or something like that.

Whatever the case may be, it’s cool, man, real cool.

Bottega Veneta Spring 09…………Versace Spring 09

Denis Semachev Spring 09

all images Style.com except Denis Semachev, International Herald Tribute.

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Loved these shoes and had to post the image as well as reference you to the New York Times article, Smooth Translations, and their slide show on some of their yummy finds on the genre. Have you found any you’d like to share? I’d love to hear from you: send your image to me to post an I’ll be sure your name is listed with it and whatever the source of the image is.

Shoes, $350.00, from Opening Ceremony, NYC.

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So, we were just talking about the great blue shoes Katie Holmes wore with her red Armani gown to the Met’s Superheroes Fashion and Fantasy exhibit at the Costume Institute and I couldn’t get over the color….of blue, then along comes Oscar De La Renta’s resort 09 collection suggesting he’s taken a fancy to that color too….yes, and yummy!

Mind you, he had lots of other color options and styles to choose from (like this great print…he’s so on with his ethnic prints right now), but his solo blue confections or blue mixed with red just seemed really masterful to me, and so well accessorized.

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Weird concept, I know, but I couldn’t help but think of Cheez-Its when I looked at Kate Spade’s homepage this evening….I’ve been thinking about the Cheez-Its box style for awhile since the yellow and red color combinations right now are so popular, but it just spoke so clearly to me from the Kate Spade page I was moved to finally post about it.

The one thing Cheez-Its doesn’t have though are those cool leopard print sling backs……work on that, okay, Cheez-Its?

Now, I guess I’ll be in trouble with this post for the link to Kate Spade’s homepage when it changes as I am sure it will with the season at minimum, but the Cheez-It box, now it has been that color combination forever, right? Wonder if their sales have increased at all this year because of fashion’s current love affair with red and yellow? Does anyone else think of Cheez-Its when they see these colors combined? Surely I am not the only one with that association in mind…the real question is, who is the beneficiary of the association?

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