WIT AND WHIMSY
NEW YORK — There’s a breath of fresh air in menswear, and it’s in the form of Mark McNairy New Amsterdam, a 11⁄ 2- year-old American-made line with an Ivy League look and a National Lampoon sense of humor. ¶ Designer Mark McNairy, a surly fireplug of a man with a wicked sense of humor and little use for the traditional conventions of fashion with an upper-case “F,” staged just his second New York Fashion Week show last Monday, getting the kind of exposure that’s likely to make his name familiar beyond the circle of men’s fashion glossies where he’s found favor. (GQ named him one of its “best new menswear designers in America” last year, and his debut fashion show last season was part of Details magazine’s efforts to showcase deserving menswear brands at Lincoln Center.)
The inspiration
Titled “The Eagle Has Landed,” McNairy’s sophomore fashion week show started with the sound of Apollo 11’s crackling radio transmission, including the voice of astronaut Neil Armstrong on the lunar surface: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
But anyone expecting an astronautical motif would have been disappointed. Instead, the clothes that followed mined the same military and Ivy League influences that have long been McNairy’s signature look (in addition to his namesake collection, which launched as footwear in 2008, McNairy had a four-year stint as the design director at J. Press and is also currently the creative director of the retro-nostalgic Americana-flavored Woolrich Woolen Mills label).
Backstage after the show, McNairy didn’t even pretend to have a single theme or single inspiration for the collection. “It was just a mishmash of everything. Just as it always is.”
The goods
The absence of a single focus made for a collection generously salted with fun, quirky and downright hilarious patterns, details, injokes, out-jokes, non sequiturs and puns.
For men, there were slim-fitting suits rendered in olive drab Army twill, blue herringbone or contrasting-color corduroy; buttonfront shirts in digital Ikat patterns or peppered with polka dots; camouflage cargo pants and trousers festooned with yellow smiley faces and khakis with all-over screenprinted clown faces. Noteworthy men’s outerwear pieces included sturdy camouf lage coats with all-over daisy embroidery (perhaps a reference to the designer’s daughter, Daisy, who was among the models walking in the show), puffer jackets and vests, and a range of varsity jackets.
Women’s offerings included the afore- mentioned clowns on white jeans, olive jeggings, leather miniskirts and shorts, suede button-front shirts and mid-thigh sheath dresses in navy blue Harris tweed, a fabric that also found its way into an eye-catching women’s duffle coat. Additional women’s outerwear pieces included a brown corduroy version of the duffle coat, a double-breasted car coat and a tweed hoodie.
Footwear included selections from the brand’s deep bench of shoe offerings — brogues, loafers, chukkas — as well as collaborations with Modern Vice and Adidas. Accessories included bow ties, knit caps and a couple of clown-face balaclavas that were downright scary.
The verdict
There’s something refreshing about a designer (and a collection) who doesn’t take himself too seriously. The clothes are wearable, accessible ($58 to $748) and enjoyable — even if you’re not on the inside of his inside joke.