THE JOURNAL
Actor Mr George MacKay has played soldiers, hippies and Hamlet. So modelling the AW17 collections is easy.
Mr George MacKay is a good sport. That much is apparent when, on the hottest day of the year – indeed, the hottest June day London has experienced in 40 years – the 25-year-old actor gamely jokes and laughs despite quietly broiling in knitted polo necks and chunky cardigans from the AW17 pre-collections. While crew members wilt, Mr MacKay adjusts a structured blazer and lifts his chin, a picture of stately British poise.
“To be honest, I’m more of a jeans and white T-shirt kind of guy,” he says over cooling cucumber spritzes in a nearby café, excusing himself as he dabs sunscreen on his alabaster skin. His features are more petal fine in person than on screen, his limbs lean but less gangly than in films such as the BBC adaptation of Birdsong and last year’s sleeper hit Captain Fantastic. What resonates for him style-wise, he says, is the personal sentimentality of clothes. “I hang onto things for a long time,” he says. “I’ve got a blue cotton blazer that I got years ago that’s like an old friend, and I sometimes pick up what my characters wear. I got stuck on braces for a wee while.” Mr MacKay is London born and bred, but his speech is inflected with Scottish colloquialisms, due in part to a Scottish flatmate and his north-of-the-border ancestry (and spending time in Edinburgh filming Sunshine On Leith in 2012).
Costume, he says, is crucial in getting to grips with characters, which have ranged from a puckish Lost Boy in his first film role in Peter Pan in 2003 to the awkward, stifled Joe grappling with his sexuality in 2014’s Brit hit Pride. “Some people dismiss costume as surface-level stuff, but it’s vital,” he says. “It’s the first impression before your character opens their mouth. It changes how you move and walk. My mum was a costume designer, and it’s always been integral to how I engage with the character.”
Some people dismiss costume as surface-level stuff, but it’s vital. It’s the first impression before your character opens their mouth
Mr MacKay was brought up in leafy Barnes, and hails from a theatre family. His father works in lighting and stage management. “I was always into drama at school, and because of my parents I got to see a lot of theatre,” he says. “I never considered it work. When you’re 10 years old, taken with a bunch of friends and plonked into a fantasy world where you spend your days learning to sword fight, running through a sound stage turned into a giant rainforest or a full-size pirate ship, you’re not thinking about any intellectual notion of acting, you just think this is the most fun thing ever.”
Proceedings are admittedly less carefree these days. Having won the 2017 Chopard Trophy for promising young actors at Cannes – when Oscar winner Ms Charlize Theron presented him and Ms Anya Taylor-Joy with the award, she said, “You’re the ones raising the bar for actors like myself” – he’s now taking on arguably the most heavily loaded role of all thesps, the tortured Hamlet, in Ophelia, a reinterpretation of the Shakespearean tragedy that focuses on the female lead instead of The Dane. Did he feel any sense of trepidation about taking on such a momentous character? “Hamlet is the buzzword for the ultimate male role, but in this film his purpose is to serve Ophelia,” says Mr MacKay. “We’re definitely not doing Hamlet. It’s her story, but it is fascinating. We’ve painted him in bolder stripes, made him less vague. It’s a different challenge.”
Mr MacKay likes to balance film and theatre. He starred in Mr Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker last year at the Old Vic and loved the nightly rush of adrenaline. He’s happy to be home intermittently from Prague (where Ophelia is being filmed), despite the freak heatwave. His home city has been the centre of a series of tragic events this summer. “Everything goes into sharp focus when you know the streets where it’s happening,” he says. “London’s always home and I’m so fond of it. Everything that’s happened just reinforces that connection.”
The king of cashmere creates low-key but ultra-luxurious pieces, all handcrafted at his factory in Solomeo, Umbria. Mr Brunello Cucinelli focuses on the finer details, a jacket in cashmere with patch pockets to indicate a sense of informality, trousers with a drawstring waist for a hint of athleticism and, as demonstrated here, the most beautifully made, reassuringly heavyweight outerwear. The designer has championed a sports aesthetic, elevated to new realms via the best materials, and that marrying of cultures continues into autumn with sleek hoodies and elegant sneakers.
This season marks Mr Haider Ackermann’s much heralded debut at Berluti, which began life as a bottier in Paris in the 19th century. He downplays the innate grandeur of the fabled house by offering something more pared back and cool, in the form of airy jackets and soft-fit blazers, silken shirts and the perfect white T-shirt. As befits a house that traditionally created rich patinas for shoes, the collection focuses on intense yet masculine colours, with deep olives, inky navy and a host of pewter, ice-blue and plum shades in between.
Not for nothing is Loro Piana regarded as one of the masters of Italian fabrics. From cashmere carefully combed from the underbelly of baby goats in a particular region of Mongolia to extracting lotus stems to incorporate in fabrics, there are no lengths Loro Piana won’t go to in the quest for quality. This is most evident in its technologically advanced Storm System coats and lighter-than-air sweaters. Despite its heavyweight status in the world of luxury clothing, the brand is a lesson in tasteful discretion.
Mr Tom Ford has always honed in on a masculine 1970s aesthetic and a sense of old-school glamour, with structured cuts and retro touches. This season, the designer-cum-film-director parlays that love of the decade into polo-necks worn with formal jackets, heavy-rimmed glasses and, for evening, swirling psychedelic jacquard on tuxedos. Alongside such exuberant pieces, the subtle majesty of a classically cut, single-breasted jacket – strong of shoulder and nipped in at the waist – can’t be underestimated.
Mr Alessandro Michele’s playful maximalism at the Italian house continues unabated into AW17, his spirited approach to menswear informing the opulent prints and irreverent touches that have been the hallmark of his collections since he took the reins at Gucci in 2015. The designer has looked again to animal imagery – not just lions, tigers and bears, but every form of serpent, insect and sea creature in between – alongside opulent decoration and nods to street culture by way of logos and graffiti-esque lettering. When it comes to Gucci, more is still definitely more.
The elder statesman of American fashion and his top-level brand Purple Label offer up preppy polish in spades this season. The designer, who celebrates 50 years in business this year, looked to the sartorial legacy of his homeland with Navajo prints and nods to rustic cowboy attire. For the everyday, he showcased a fine line of classic denim and his timeless knitwear, for the man whose life is more collegiate Rhode Island than rodeo star.
Mr Anthony Vaccarello’s menswear at Saint Laurent is a film noir affair of sleek black suiting and glossy leathers. His tailoring is in keeping with the Parisian house’s DNA – knife-edge sharp with narrow trousers and neat, crisply cut jackets. For autumn, band T-shirts and skinny jeans sit alongside retro varsity jackets and casualwear, but for the man who needs a tad more substance in his wardrobe, Saint Laurent’s pulsing-with-attitude suits provide just the right backbone.
For AW17, Ms Miuccia Prada has mined the less showy, more subtle elements of the 1970s in a collection that focuses on tactile materials. Sumptuous suedes, plush corduroy and rustic denim accents all speak of the Italian designer’s softly-softly approach to men’s style, with Ms Prada herself citing the idea of simplicity and a sense of reality as the starting pistons for her thought process. With such exceptional fabrication, however, let’s call it a form of hyper-reality.
The brand that has been a byword for arch experimentalism since the 1990s continues in that vein with a series of deconstructed coats and oversized outerwear pieces, with undone hems and frayed touches adding to the sense of louche cool. As well as these bold statements, Maison Margiela offers up handsome military coats and suiting that nod to the traditions of English tailoring – Prince of Wales checks, herringbone – for clothes that won’t frighten the fashion horses too much.
Mr Riccardo Tisci’s final collection for the Paris label is a fitting swan song. His knack for combining American sportswear with European polish is evident in the bold, graphic lettering alongside quirkily cut suits and innovative knitwear. The designer has looked to denim – that staple of the American West – alongside plaids, stars, stripes and imagery of totem poles. Vivid splashes of coral and fire-engine red and details such as oversized buttons and draping and elongated tops confirm Mr Tisci’s place as one of menswear’s boldest provocateurs, taking the tropes of sportswear and US workwear and filtering them through his considered gaze.