The line, long underrated as one of geometry's most basic forms, is getting a lot of exposure on the Milan menswear runway.
Designers are embracing stripes of, well, every stripe, and using them as a metaphor of sorts to clean up the line - that is, the silhouettes - of the collections presented during Milan Fashion Week.
For next summer, men can expect to be wearing stripes, both fine and bold, along with pulsating, radiating and curving lines, as well as simple checks, that create optical effects that belie the simplicity of some of the looks. Lines are also being worked into the fabric, in chunky textiles that create architecture of their own.
Giorgio Armani says he has done a wholesale clean-up of looks for his Emporio Armani collection for next spring and summer. The predominantly black-and-white collection has a strong graphic component, with lines transmitting a sense of energy from the garment, from steady pulses, webs and waves to bold black-and-white stripes. Colour comes in contrasting stripes of turquoise and aqua-green.
"After years of doing a little bit of everything, a melange, florals and ethnicity, finally a little cleaning," Armani says.