A few months ago, fashion designer Yohan Serfaty unveiled his Autumn/Winter 2013 menswear collection for his label Y Project at the Maison des Métallos during Paris Men’s Fashion Week. Entitled ‘Chairman’, the collection was conceived as an allegory of the illusion of social power and its consequences on human behaviour.
This irreverent inquiry into the status quo is not entirely surprising when bearing in mind that Serfaty studied political sciences before deciding to make a career change and embrace fashion. To translate such a critical concept about society and its mores into his garments for Autumn/Winter 2013, the designer resorted to a new lexicon coined specifically to deconstruct traditional menswear codes, namely formalism and conventions, hierarchical semiotic values and the role of clothes as uniforms.
Serfaty purposefully disregarded traditional tailoring details in order to highlight a new approach to menswear anchored by the need to balance opposing shapes: fitted (and occasionally cropped) trousers and waists cinched by large belts contrasted with high turtlenecks and with the voluminous shapes of jackets, coats and parkas. Similarly, pockets and button plackets were discreetly and sparely used in order not to detract from the careful equilibrium of contours that, according to what Serfaty suggests in his collection, is crucial to engender a new male silhouette. As in Y Project’s previous collections, thick wool and leather were the predominant fabrics coloured by a palette of camel, khaki, moss green, midnight blue and varied shades of grey.