What do you get when a classic London menswear brand retools its offering? Fresh suits, kaleidoscopic prints and at least one pair of serious sunglasses.

When we talk about Dunhill, it’s often in the same breath as old chestnuts such as “classic menswear” or “old-school English tailoring”. This is a brand, after all, that was founded in the late 1800s and has since specialised in bespoke suits, elegant ready-to-wear clothing and luxurious leather goods. For the most part, it has spent the last 100-plus years finely tuning its output to great success. But Dunhill has its fun, too, as evidenced in the latest collection for spring/summer 2021.

Under the creative direction of Mr Mark Weston, Dunhill turned out a menswear show tailor-made for modern men. There’s a good dose of tailoring in there, yes, but mostly ingeniously twisted takes on the classic suit. The brand proves that it is as focused as ever on craftsmanship, but has also turned, for inspiration, to influences such as car paint, gears and New Romanticism to establish a new stylish direction.

Car paint, you say? And gears? Well, unsurprisingly, it works. It’s likely because Dunhill originally started out making motoring accessories, providing “everything but the motor.” It’s also because the brand has put in the work over the years, mastering the rules of tailoring and menswear so that it can break them without fear. It’s not a complete departure from Dunhill’s heritage – you can still see the skill with a needle and thread in perfectly pleated trousers and glen plaid suits – but each piece has gotten a runway-worthy, fashion-forward upgrade. Just the thing we’re hankering for after a lost year of style.

While suits on the runway were deconstructed, loose and oversized – an ultra-modern take on tailoring for the sartorially adventurous – we were particularly fond of the slimmer silhouettes, which lent a youthful attitude while retaining Dunhill’s heritage of excellent craft. Look closer and you’ll see that the classic white shirt beneath the blazer is actually fastened with a zip – a smart update on what can so often be a piece you throw on without thinking. Paired with sunglasses in an exaggerated aviator shape and a cross-body bag big enough to fit only the essentials (what else do you need, nowadays?), the look is distinctly fresh and well put together.

“Abrasion” was also a main theme of this collection. Inspired by the kaleidoscopic colours and shapes created by the mechanical erosion of a surface through friction, such as when paint is sanded away from the panels of a car, these abrasion prints can be found on bomber jackets and sweaters, and team up nicely with the collection’s staple pieces of black trousers, white T-shirts, and box-fresh sneakers. Vibrant and unusual, the “abrasive” print is unique and exclusive to Dunhill and pays a fittingly modern tribute to its automotive heritage and founder Mr Alfred Dunhill’s passion for the emerging technology of automobiles.

Transitional outerwear was also in abundance in this collection. Leather and denim jackets are just exactly what we are looking for as weather goes from frigid to warm (and probably back and forth a few times) and winter turns to spring turns to summer. But dressing for the shift in weather is a challenge we welcome. After months spent in loungewear, what could be better than considered pieces crafted by tailoring experts wrought in modern fabrics and eye-catching prints?