Interest in the significance rise of Austrian menswear designer Ute Ploier’s work since her Automne Hiver 2005 collection has been on the backdrop of her receiving the Festival International de Mode et de Photographie à Hyères in 2003, and an increasingly demonstrated aptitude that outreaches clothes designed for men within a larger and broader context. Her conveyed modus operandi has considerably expanded with themed collections that arises from her own fabric and contextual research who recognises the status and subversion of menswear in today’s society. It is through the emphasis of her interest in art and literature that have informed her own atelier as seen for example in the ‘Timeloopers’ collection, the patterned motif on the backdrop of an abstracted musician like Morrissey can commit to the social upheavals and the ideals of the modern man.

It’s an exciting timeline and many visual synopses Ute chooses to explore each season. In the case of her current entitled 8.5, the number is indicative of Italian director Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 film with Marcello Mastroianni at its core. Ute transcribed a La Bella Figura signature in response to the film that centers upon the interior and exterior confrontation of a torn struggle between public engagement and personal commitment. The asymmetrical buttoned cardigans arose also with easier tailoring in wider length trousers, striped black and white suiting and graphic polos. The instantaneous communication was as if the laws of physics were bent and inearthed the tensions and struggles Mastroianni has endured in Fellini’s orchestrated film.

If we move our attention to her new collection that remains unnamed, in Paris for this autumn, we were met by a German grunge techno soundtrack that made us feel fallen into an unknown abyss. But the centered collection in spotlight, hinted by the abstracted necklaces, alluded to a somewhat underground secret society and their sleek wares were unsubmerged. Arisen were uses of Scottish mohair and English wools that Ute ultilised and sourced fabrics from, cashmere pullovers and fuller-length trousers cut paired together in a fuzzy mohair pullover. Her clinical tabbed collar shirts consolidated a range of shorten length jackets as well as a feckled wool cardigan, with many of her buttoned cardigans constructed with more oversized sleeves. Connecting all of these with front draped scarves in long length and a plaid outercoat, Ute expressed a multiplied dynamic that reemphasised the decadence of men’s staples whilst also highlighting the innovate use of carefully sewn fabrics.