Although he stepped away from the runway this season, Neil Barrett was still thinking about it. The Milan-based English designer rendered his lookbook to resemble a live but hallucinatory show that had been shot in a hall of mirrors. “The world feels a bit upside down at the moment,” he said in a release: “I wanted to mirror that so that our catwalk is upside down.”
The clothes were gently manipulated too. A wide-necked sweater, sort of minimalist Guernsey, featured an inset collar and came in either gray wool or purple mohair mix. It was worn above pants whose flipped waistband revealed an inbuilt belt. A pale navy woolen overcoat featured swashbuckling zhooshed lapels. Buttonholes were covered on high-lapeled gray flannel jackets worn with schoolboy shorts.
A loungey cardigan patterned with a flaked paint jacquard and produced in pink and purple was extremely eye-catching, yet the hottest garments here (arguably) were also amongst the most restrained: minimalist wool or jersey casual jackets in black, gray, or navy looked like paragon blousons. This was a uniform that transcended wider uniformity: a classic example of Barrett’s exceptional refinement.
