EDITORIAL: ENGINEERED GARMENTS AW18
When it comes to enjoying the Fall, there are any number of time-honored activities at your disposal. But, while the sights, sounds and tastes of autumn, the source of all that seasonal enjoyment, may stay consistent, the conditions that you will be enjoying those things in rarely do. You know the old joke about New England weather; if you don’t like it, just wait five minutes
Appropriately, for a season so heavy on symbolism related to change and the unalterable march of time, the weather can be a bit fickle. When fall begins, summer heat has an uncanny knack of assuming the role of an oblivious acquaintance who has trapped you in a conversation on the street, and proceeds to ignore all of the social cues that say “it’s time to get going.” Once the Autumnal Equinox comes around, you’ll start to see things like flannel, heavy parkas, boots and scarves, regardless of what the temperature is. Go for that classic fall look too soon, though, and you’ll just spend the day sweating it out. Later on in the season, winter shows up to your party two and half hours early. The difference between brisk, fall, crispness and blustery cold is marginal, in terms of actual numbers, but you can feel the difference. Suddenly, that lighter fall jacket you wore seems inadequate, and your nose is running for the rest of the day. But the real problem isn’t so much the unpredictable weather, as much as it is the expectations that the weather will conform to the autumn social calendar exactly.
The ideal fall wardrobe demands adaptability to unpredictable, quickly changing conditions, but it can be difficult to reconcile the classically inclined mental image with the reality in front of you.
The same sense of classicism that informs the ideal picture of fall is at work in Engineered Garments’ Autumn Winter ’18 collection. Designer Daiki Suzuki looked inward, to the vintage Americana at the core of everything Engineered Garments does, and embraced the traditional elements, before subverting them with a forward looking twist.
Built around cold weather style staple patterns and pieces, red and black buffalo plaid, corduroy, wool, (faux) fur, blazers, vests, parkas, etc, imbued with a daring, experimental sensibility, Engineered Garment’s Autumn/Winter collection turns a familiar sense of routine into something unpredictable. The daring, reoriented proportions and nontraditional surfaces on display aren’t just prepared for the fall weather, they are a representation of the fall weather.
