In a menswear season dominated by K-pop frenzy and theatrical shows, Winnie designer Idris Balogun went back to essentials. Following several seasons of artist collaborations, his first runway show at Paris Fashion Week was just about the clothes.
Models ambled through a private apartment overlooking the Arc de Triomphe in outfits that mixed traditional tailoring with sportswear elements. A case in point: suit jackets layered over mandarin collar denim jackets.
Balogun took an uninhibited approach to formal dressing, pairing a tuxedo jacket with faded dyed jeans. Suits were dressed down with check-patterned shirts and polo tops, while a matching gray shirt and cargo pants offered a smart alternative to the traditional office uniform.
His tailoring confidence reflects his training on London’s Savile Row, and experience as senior menswear designer for Burberry and Tom Ford. But Balogun’s color palette could use some refining: pops of turquoise, raspberry and lime green made for a somewhat uneven display.
One of the winners of the runner-up Karl Lagerfeld Special Jury Prize at the LVMH Prize for Young Designers last year, the designer sourced most of the fabrics from Nona Source, the platform that sells surplus fabrics from the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton fashion and leather goods brands.
“I designed this collection during a time where I feel like I was just seeing a lot happening in the industry, just a lot of like narratives and concepts, and I really just wanted to pull all those things back and go back to the time where I fell in love with fashion, which was on Savile Row, on the cutting table, just fabric, chalk and some shears,” he said after the show.