After taking ear to the fact that Shayne Oliver would take to this year’s Pitti Uomo to showcase an array of new designs, the streetwear scientist left audiences in disillusioned awe as they were taking with his latest work. As Pitti Uomo’s special guest, Shayne Oliver presented new light to HBA by embracing the time-honoured Florentine menswear tailoring tradition and deep rooted mannerisms and subverting them. While Pitti Uomo’s predominantly known for traditional cut & sew bespoke offerings, this season’s showcases gravitated towards more experimental designs, and HBA was no exception to this. Alongside his recent move to Milan, Oliver traded in loud graphics, bold prints and zips for fine fabrics and original silhouettes.
Hood By Air is known amongst street culture as the attire and authority to claim your own space and stating your name. from the collection alone and the surreal setting coupled with it, HBA became the instant alternative in Pitti Uomo but also became one of it's highlights as it became a talkpoint in the brands unnatural habitat. Hiding under dark fur-lined hoods and long, white eyelashes and structured uniformity outerwear, the HBA cult appeared almost as if a rural tribe of pagan fashion entered the village.
Elegant topcoats, paired alongside sharp button-down shirts and loose-fitted trousers lined the collection in their "HBA basic" form, whilst, leather jackets saw decompositions along the breasts and body and being refitted with strange detailing and larger lapels. Faux fur-glistened the hoods of every gilet and synthetic blazer/jacket, while the heavy use of leather continued as Shayne Oliver incorporated the material in his illustrative styling. One of my personal favourites was an elegant camel coat which was refashioned and chopped up so it hung off the body and exposed the shoulders. this was impeccably partnered with formal trousers where the waistline on stood away from the body to reveal stitched-in underwear to play reference to the brands streewear culture as they were presented in a baggy, low-slung streetwear style. to top it off, the collection was blossomed with Shayne signatures classic fringe-tongued camp high-heeled boots which blurred paths between the 70's and now,. the whole collection very luxurious yet extremely experimental, Oliver proving again his ability on the runway.
The show was all fashioned by supersize afros and a pounding soundtrack specially composed by Arca.
We were like, since this is going to be a special project, let’s just do what we normally ignore and deal with that first, and then work backwards and do us. You know, what makes us feel sexy and what we need and don’t want from menswear,
The collection was based upon someone who was more noble than style, someone who was on the outskirts of the city. We came to Florence and immediately felt like there should be some kind of youth energy going on, so we came from this place of this noble, rural thing to try to push some sort of energy out of it,
this collection is entirely based on the idea that we’re here at Pitti. We felt this should be a stretch for us. We worked backward. We were like, everything needs to be made tailored, but it needs to be for us. And now we know that we’re capable of doing this so we can incorporate it more into the collection.
It should be noted the designs are not the brand’s 2015 A/W offerings but a homage of Pitti’s traditionalists and a step forward in the design legacy of Hood By Air and Shayne Oliver.
Photos courtesy of Antonio Giacometti at www.cosmonauta.co.uk
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