I just don’t get it: Why aren’t most of our Spring/Summer collections in stores yet? None of the funky Henrik Vibskov stuff has arrived in Ambush (which would have made a perfect addition to my shopping feature); neither is the Maison Martin Margiela at Surrender. Imagine my horror when I stepped into Club 21 Men and noticed that the store was barely half-filled, with repeated pieces loosely hanging on the racks, with only a few brands such as Damir Doma, Mihara Yashuhiro and Mastermind available—come on! If the city prides itself as one of the region’s fashion capitals with two upcoming fashion festivals (the inaugural Men’s Fashion Week in March and the Asia Fashion Exchange in April), our retailers should play their part and step up their game to bring in their seasonal collections on time so that serious buyers can actually get them when they want them (I was in fact seriously in need of my Margielas, natch).
On a more positive note, I am eagerly anticipating the launch of local fashion designer and good friend Jonathan Seow’s (Woods & Woods) collaboration pieces with classic footwear brand Dr. Martens on Mar 4, 8pm at Post Museum (107/109 Rowell Rd., 6396-7980), where I will be dropping some choons too (woo-hoo!). The footwear and capsule ready-to-wear collections, dubbed “Drift” and “Blue Drifts” respectively, are inspired by the afro-Cuban, jazz and CBGB (Country, Blue Grass and Blues) music movements, sounds that Seow listened to growing up. While details of the ready-to-wear are yet unreleased, footwear fans can look forward to clever reinterpretations of Dr. Martens’ contemporary classic shoes with newer shapes, including the faded denim pastel hues of the Andy 4-Eye Gibson shoe ($139) for guys and the pretty floral prints of the Melody Mary Jane pieces ($119) for girls. If you can’t make it for the launch, don’t fret (though you’ll be missing out on the folk, jazz and blues-inspired tunes I will be dropping)—the collection will be available through Mar 13, 3-8:30pm daily at the venue.
Other upcoming news and releases: The complete list of brands participating at this year’s Asia Fashion Exchange in next week’s column, and my report on the runway show of Wykidd Song’s highly-anticipated debut menswear line Wykidd. See you back here next week.