Neil Barrett
REVIEW
COMPLETE COLLECTION
MILAN, June 21, 2010
By
Neil Barrett used to look as neat and precise as a pin, but since he showed a creased suit in his Fall collection, he's fallen in love with the wrinkle. "I'm doing creases on everything," he said of his Spring lineup. "They're so low maintenance. And you look thin, because creasing attaches to your body."Leanness has always been something of an obsession with this designer, as it was for the mods and the punks, the youth cults whose style he often mines in his work. Here, he attached the split tail of the mod parka to elongated shirts and tees, the volume of which rather counteracted the skinny effect. But if Barrett isn't obsessed with all things slim anymore, he hasn't given up on athleticism. All the trousers in the collection were sweatpants-style, and the lack of sleeves injected a hearty dose of physicality. There was a definite sense of his clothes relaxing. The designer even came up with his version of surface decoration—he made biker patches in fabric, leather, or suede and stuck them on jackets, tees, pants, and coats. As for the hybrid element that he's so attached to, he kept it to the footwear for Spring, chopping together a desert boot and a jelly sandal and rendering the result in royal blue suede. It looked like a candidate for shoe of the season.
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