This summer’s fashions have gone all anti-establishment .

Fashion designers are a contrarian lot. When the masses claim that certain sneakers are for dads or that cargo shorts are cringingly uncool, you can bet your bright yellow DHL socks that a fashion designer somewhere will see it as a challenge. If you’re not yet on board with socks and sandals, for example, you’re being left behind. This is a hard pill to swallow because, until recently, what men could and couldn’t get away with was relatively straightforward. We wore ties to work and kept jeans and sneakers for the weekend – nice and controlled, with no stressful surprises and lots of good old-fashioned rules. But if fashion has one rule, it’s that the rules are always shifting and the dress codes that once dictated what men wore and where are falling out of favour, in favour of something less constrained.

Just under a year ago, Mr John Bercow, the speaker of the British House of Commons, announced that male MPs would no longer be required to wear ties in the house, a landmark move towards less conservative attire. And while we’re unlikely to see the foreign secretary donning wavy garms any time soon, this casualisation of the establishment indicates that menswear is getting more relaxed. Which is good news, really, because it means there have never been more opportunities for men to look stylish and we’re sort of free to wear whatever we like. But where does that leave anti-establishment fashion?

There’s nothing more anti-establishment than an underground rave. Which is why, for better or worse, rave is what menswear’s laser focus is now locked on. You may have noticed the kind of gabber-renaissance-slash-post-Soviet aesthetic propelled early on by designers such as Gosha Rubchinskiy and Vetements, which printed clothing with Russian typography and brought bucket hats and baggy trousers back into fashion.

It’s a trend that’s hard to miss. There are quite a few items on MR PORTER at the moment that are so rave-ready they’re practically gurning. This isn’t a throwback to the nu-rave movement of the late 2000s, but something closer to the original 1990s scene. Skinny jeans are out; pink tye-dye Stüssy shorts are in. The vividly coloured prints we’re seeing are like electro-rave record sleeves (see the oversized shirts in trippy colourways from Cav Empt, Flagstuff and Balenciaga). McQ Alexander McQueen has referenced the rave scene directly in its SS18 collection by printing 1990s acid-house flyers onto sweaters and T-shirts.

Much like an out-of-control rave, however, a lot of these clothes are somewhat frightening. How exactly does one pull off a giant green dragon shirt that looks worthy of World of Warcraft, even if it is Balenciaga? The key, as it is so often with clothes that push the envelope, is confidence. If you’re clued up on the wilder side of streetwear and have the balls to wear it, chances are you’ll be able to make it look good. And if that kind of loud ravewear doesn’t tickle your sartorial fancy, you can always don something more understated. If you’re feeling particularly rebellious, you could even wear a tie.

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