The Couture Times's video: Moncler Gamme Bleu Spring 2017 Menswear MFW

Subscribe to the channel & follow www.twitter.com/leo_gamero for the latest on fashion shows and news. Moncler Gamme Bleu Spring 2017 Menswear MFW from Vogue.com MILAN, JUNE 19, 2016 by ALEXANDER FURY At the heart of Moncler is camping—not a reference to the schlocky, big-top shows Thom Browne stages for the brand, but in the old-fashioned tarpaulin and sleeping-bag sense. When first founded in 1952, Moncler produced quilted sleeping bags, a single model of cagoule, and tents. All three were on display in Browne’s Spring Moncler Gamme Bleu show, direct from the archives. The Jellystone Park setting of turf and fir trees, and a duo suited like Yogi Bears in mascot-style bodysuits stripping each model down and setting them on their path? That was pure Thom Browne. Browne is an old-fashioned American boy at heart—which exports well to Europe, with its false nostalgia for an American heritage already half-known through film and television, but not as cliched as it appears stateside. Ironically, the American often rears its head most evidently in Browne’s work for this Italo-French company. Absence makes the heart grow fonder? This show, with its 40 perfectly pitched tents and well-dressed models doing the rounds, was a campsite scene straight out of a Hollywood movie. “It’s really just a simple story,” said Browne, citing American boy Scouts and Smokey rather than Yogi as his inspiration. To lay out a little of the plot synopsis, the models marched out in floor-length cagoule–sleeping bag hybrids; the bears went down to the wood and gruffly wrestled each cagoule off each model to reveal their underpinnings. Spoiler alert: The stuff under comprised the actual collection. The two bears then sent the boys on their way, ringing-round Moncler’s campsite. After, they each retired to one of those tents, unfurling their cagoule as a mattress to bivouac down. “I like the entertainment value,” shrugged Browne. The focus of the garments was utility, as befits a scout-inspired show—along with the shorts Browne so adores. Many a model’s well-scrubbed knees glinted like apples below acres of exposed thigh. But back to the utility. “With Moncler, you want to make sure people see utility in the clothes,” said Browne. “Almost taking utility to an exaggerated extreme.” So pockets bristled on everything from knee-high socks (impractical) to the backs of jackets (impractical-er) to safari and field-style jackets and standard wide-cut country garb. An added utilitarian bent came from technical fabrications, nylons and corduroy, waterproofing, thermo-bonding, and even old-fashioned techy textiles like gabardine or cavalry twill. Played out in earthy hues of acorn, khaki, midnight blue, and black, there was a rustic charm to these clothes, a retro skew to the ’50s, when Moncler itself began, and an obvious wearability. Mostly—a surfeit of astrakhan underlined Moncler Gamme Bleu as the deluxe line of the label, but it’s not exactly everyday, nor easy for most men to pull off. Dissecting Browne’s looks—generally single-hued or smothered in a wide, picnic-blanket plaid—and adding long pants changes your perception: from camp (in both senses of the word) MGM rural coming-of-age tale to valid retail proposition. Art as commerce. You can’t get much more all-American than that.