Fashion retailers that take commercial risks and push the boundaries of their clients’ sartorial taste by stocking unknown designers are, most certainly, hard to come by. As such, when the store Layers London announced that it was adding the very talented menswear designer Mohsin Ali to its impressive roster of brands, The Style Examiner had reason to celebrate.
Mohsin Ali graduated from the London College of Fashion in 1999 with a First Class honours degree. Since then, he has worked for a number of brands while developing his own collections. Passionate about mastering fabrics to engender graceful silhouettes, Ali’s designs tend to be devoid of ornament and only reveal its most accomplished ingenuity when looking closely at the details and fabrics used.
For his autumn/winter 2013 menswear collection (available at Layers London since 20 July 2013), entitled ‘In Honour of the King’, Ali drew inspiration from Muay Thai, the national sport of Thailand. As in previous collections, the garments combine traditional and technical fabrics of the highest quality and embroidery is used to provide a tactile dimension. Typical Muay Thai shorts are reinterpreted in cashmere and layered over heavy knit leggings, whereas shapes are playfully controlled in outerwear pieces, such as belted jackets, oversized quilted coats, fleece jackets and detachable capes.