Menswear Designer of the Year Nominee
Michael Bastian is out to perfect, not reinvent, American men’s wear, while celebrating iconic American men and stories. For spring, he created a tribute to lifeguards, a cheerful collection of beachy yet effortlessly sexy sportswear. For fall he went in a rugged, slightly grungy direction, inspired by “On the Road” and “My Own Private Idaho,” and with his own spirits dampened by the dissolution of the Bill Blass men’s collection, which he had been tapped to revive. The silver lining? Ideas he’d compartmentalized for Blass started seeping into his signature collection, he says, making it “a little more consciously chic, not so washed down or so loose.”
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