Fashionable man about town

Earlier this season, London Fashion Week announced its devoted attention to male designs. The AW09 Man event is nearly upon us and this season will also see the in store launch of SS09 LENS and Topman Design. The Topman Design SS09 collection takes inspiration from the influential architect Jean Prouve and Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree; the designs draw heavily on functional engineering with an attention to evolving technical developments. There is a sportswear influence throughout the collection with hooded jumpers, track pants and cropped cycling jacket all with a colour palette of vivid block colours. There is also a more mature side to TMD SS09 with heavily washed and creased leather garments teamed with tailored separates that add a sense of relaxed luxury.

In the Lens area James Long joins the designer collective which includes past successes; Carolyn Massey, Dexter Wong, Mjolk, and Kasper Harup-Hansen, all of whom have been hand selected by the Design Director of Topman, Gordon Richardson and B Store founder Matthew Murphy.

All five designers will be available from the Lens area in Topman Oxford Circus, La Foret (Japan) and online as well as making their debut in New York on Broadway and Broome. Key piece this season is the James Long bag: James takes industrial fabrics and turns them into pieces of art, his bags are designed with a masculine aesthetic that boasts authority, he teams soft leather with chambray suede which contrasts with heavy duty merchant rope handles finished with overstitched hard wearing leather.

Image: LENS