Nick Graham Fall 2016

Coming up with an innovative collection is not the only way to get editors and industry professionals’ attention. After all, it is an arduous task to create eye-catching, innovative collections with a new perspective on silhouette, design and construction every season.

For fall 2016 Nick Graham found a way to celebrate traditional suit silhouettes with a presentation that combined an interesting inspiration—National Parks complete with park rangers. Models were perched on boxes surrounded by flora and fauna, and on occasion the flora and fauna was an extension of the clothes. Hats with huge plumes and birds attached; blossomed branches extending out of trousers; plumage spilling out of suit jackets, and floral headdresses with bird’s nest. And his inclusion of top male models such as Sebastian Suave and Travis Smith was an added attraction.

Though at times the flora and fauna embellishments were a distraction from the actual collection, overall Graham achieved his goal, a modern dissertation on suits. And Graham’s layering and pairing of polka dot, floral print shirts with pinstripe and plaid three-piece suits were fashion forward and reflects they way the modern male consumer approaches suiting.

By pairing some of the suits with hiking boots, and a sundry of hiking gear with the fitted, slim pants in this collection, Graham demonstrates that modern suiting can reflect a more relaxed, mobile lifestyle and goes beyond the more traditional, business projections of men’s suiting. In other words, modern suiting is and can be fun, and project a lifestyle of ease, comfort, and in Graham’s case, whimsy.

And that is a huge part of the charm of this collection; the whimsical affection injected each garment. Men’s suiting will never be the same!!

—William S. Gooch