By The fashion gods weren’t smiling on New York Fashion Week on Wednesday. There was snow, there was sleet, and there were puddles deep enough to drown an Escalade.
Respite came in the form of the Boss Autumn/Winter 2018 show, which promised a , which, to be fair, had already been tinkered with last season when the runway was full of baggy pants and billowy jackets. Slimmed back to a Boss-y-er shape, tailoring was still soft for autumn/winter, but a little neater. And tonal, boy was it tonal. ‘It’s very me,’ said Ingo Wilts, chief brand officer. ‘Part of what a collection should be is what you would wear, and tonal dressing it what I like.’
First came grey in the form of chunky roll necks, wool great coats and textured double-breasted tailoring. Side-taped trousers (a trend, write it down) with zips at gathered hems took the proceedings in a sportier direction, but it was all still very sartorial – there was no gym wear, or anything that might be confused as such. Even the quilted track pants were more board room than bench press (providing you work at a very progressive start-up.)
The transition from grey into brown was punctuated by pops of yellow, most notably on a sort of blanket-coat – a thing of beauty, really – and a great intarsia-knit roll neck. Then came a much-coveted (I checked after the show) baseball shirt, cut in various fabrics, and oversized quilted outerwear – the kind of thing you could nap in when all the streetstyle paps get overwhelming.
Finally, Boss’ autumn/winter blue phase, which began with a wool poncho, progressed with some very wearable DB tailoring, and ended with the best coat of the collection; a drop shoulder, shawl-collared overcoat that might just serve as your best investment come September. ‘One day before the show we changed everything,’ remembered Wilts, ‘decided it should be more monochrome and tonal, whereas it was brutally sporty, and I just said ‘no, we can’t do it’. I wanted to wear loads of stuff in the collection (which is surely what it’s all about), so it’s safe to say that Ingo made the right call.
