Christian Westphal: Urban Warriors

Christian Westphal´s spring 2011 collection is a looser, a little more colourful and a lot more casual chic than fall, but his formula for quirky cuts is basically unchanged. After all, even the most die-hard urban warrior needs a break from black once in a while.

After a couple of seasons of citified dressing, collectors of Westphal may well be pining for his more eclectic but wearable pieces. If so, they’ll find plenty of them: washed out coats, soft boxy jackets, wrapped pants and shorts, and jersey that looked as if they’d been sourced from a trip around the markets of 19th century America.

Westphal explains he had been thinking about recasting basics and working on a kind of primitive collage concept inspired by a visit to the 19th century Wild West. But unlike the fall’s collection, with its bohemian layer on layer vibe, spring isn’t about an overarching theme or look: It is about giving a reason to shop, and as such, there are many arguments here for a guy to unfreeze his AmEx.

New fabrics are crushed techno taffeta, draped jersey, and glove leather-like cotton, and a starched looking white poplin shirt with origami-like folds round the neck. You will also find a pair of trompe-l’oeil sequined shirts, with their graphic shapes evoking a nighttime skyline.

The jeans are no longer artfully destroyed and stained but the corporation with the Okayama denim producers have outcomed camouflage patch worked jeans with rivets in antique gold and brass, however with a flicker of irony.

Patching together Sergio Leone´s picture “The Good, The Bad, The Ugly”, the collection moves from complex jersey tanks with knots and spray dye and knit with a kind of moon-glow lightness. In the collage of elements, there are recycled fabrics and natural-looking hemp weaves, and a sidelong tribalism in the urban-warrior outerwear and accessories.

The nature-versus-man concept is for spring/summer 2011 a meld of futuristic technique and art craftsmanship.

View the collection here.

Photos & text Copyright Christian Westphal.

Christian Westphal & the Italian Renaissance in Autumn/Winter 2010

Born in Copenhagen, Danish designer Christian Westphal launched his eponymous label in 2006, after having graduated from the Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne in Paris.

Season after season, this talented young designer has not ceased to amaze his audience. Once again, I too was amazed when I recently received the 2010 autumn/winter lookbook with the following press release, which eloquently describes the collection:

The winter 2010 collection from Christian Westphal has a refined aesthetic with slashes of Renaissance heroes from the paintings of Titian and El Greco.

The cuts, colors, silhouettes, and attitude of the Italian Renaissance paintings are the inspiration for the autumn/winter 2010 collection.

The look is a glamorous, dirty but quiet, modern Euro-boho, with an ongoing nod to armored self-confident kings and noblemen dressed in shiny black metal waistcoats, oversized shirts, small and neat collars, accessorized with heavy trims and huge scarves. A style that contributes to dress with layer on layer, like the urban nomads we have become.

The AW10 collection is less ceremonial and more muted and monochromatic—though no less surreal—than the brightly colored summer 2009 collection but keeps the urban graphic look, in particular the architectural take on casual suiting. However the color palette is essentially black and white with dashes of bottle green optimism, turquoise crispiness, and navy blue classicism.

A tweak here and there can elevate even the simplest outfits. Notice the crispy cotton poplin shirt with a neatly folded starched-looking collar on collar, the check patterned shirt with the collar that develops into an oversized scarf, or the casual blazer in knitted merino wool. Small moves like these separate you from the pack.

The jeans sharpen up for winter 2010. Not that I am saying you should wear this hand-painted torn-and-frayed blue denim to the office, but it’s hard to go wrong wearing it when you’re off the clock. The denim collection also consists of raw black and washed blue jeans–all three are woven and stitched on the famed looms of Okayama, Japan.

It’s called attitude. Nothing finishes off an outfit better than a sharp dose of confidence. How else do grown men get away with wearing a plucked and beat-up mink jacket over a hooded jersey top? But we’re not talking hip-hop-bling-shake-the booty fur—we’re talking slim-cut, rock-guy getup biker jacket to be worn with dirty and oily boots with attitude.

The strategy is to modernize menswear, calibrating the millimeter of difference that separates a boring uniform from an innovative piece. Christian Westphal sees avant-garde as deconstruction, working to and from the human body and making pieces with a strong, modern look.



For additional information on Christian Westphal, please read the following articles:
The Shockheaded Peter Project by Christian Westphal
Jazzing it up with Transcendent Black by Christian Westphal

Photos & slideshow 2010 a/w collection Copyright Christian Westphal.

The Shockheaded Peter Project by Christian Westphal

Heinrich Hoffmann (1809-1894) was a German physician and psychiatrist who wrote poetry and satirical comedy under nearly eight pen names.

His most memorable work was an illustrated collection of children’s verses entitled Der Struwwelpeter—that is, Shockheaded Peter, which can also translate as Slovenly Peter.

Danish designer Christian Westphal writes how he “looked at the old book from 1844,” which drew him into the world of “boogiemen, monsters, and angry adults.”

As he compared the images with ones similar to the Victorian world of theatrical illusion, Christian was inspired to create a spring/summer 2010 that would be depicted by “decadent and unusual elegance.”

The Shockheaded Peter Project Collection is designed to play on our fears of every creak in the night. Like the trap doors and secret entrances in the imaginative mind of a little child, the collection contains several levels of multi-dimensional surprises.

Androgynous in direction, crisp in color, poetic in construction, and geometric in cuts—the collection modernizes our concept of menswear with luxurious fabrics that give men a look, which is strong enough to conquer the biggest of any fear.

The collection will be presented by Christian at the Japan Fashion Week in Tokyo this October.



Photo top left s/s 2010 collection Copyright Christian Westphal.
Slideshow s/s 2010 collection Copyright Christian Westphal.