The Cutting Class

Prada, Menswear, AW12.

It was against the background of the homogenous men’s suit, that Miuccia Prada worked touches of individualism in her recent show for Autumn-Winter 2012. The looks were comprised of carefully layered garments that were given personality by small arrangements of pocket detailing. These adornments included long brooch pins with sporting and hunting emblems, flowers, pens, pocket squares and pocket books.

They also allowed a clever play of colour through the vibrant red lensed glasses that were visible on some of the outfits as the hits of colour helped to offset the more muted and traditional tones of the suits and shirts that formed the looks.

There was a poetic sense of symbolism and tradition in the small emblems, and in the same way that an institutional or family crest will pull together simplified images to act as a representation of what the group of people stand for, these small tokens can be rearranged or switched on a daily basis depending on the mood of the wearer.

Catwalk images from Vogue.co.uk».

Pocket bags are simply the pieces of fabric that form the inside section of pockets. They are normally hidden, discreet, utilitarian and completely forgetable. Unless of course you are Christopher Kane and an opaque pocket bag could get in the way of your liquid vision.

Because of the fact that Kane used pouches of technicolour liquid in his AW11 collection a light coloured, or skin coloured background became a must. If the plastic inserts had simply been laid on top of the dark suiting fabrics then the effect of the transparent plastic would have been completely lost and the colour completely dulled out. The way around it was to leave the plastic sections without any solid fabric backing which was easy to achieve on necklines and waistbands but for pockets it has lead to the use of nude mesh pocket bags.

The fact that the pocket bags are virtually invisible also translated well into the crocheted garments, where a solid pocket bag would have been visible through the holes in the knit. 

Christopher Kane, AW11. Images from Vogue.co.uk.

Pocket bag images from TheCuttingClass.