A B R I G HI'
EASO
Men's clothes
combine timeless
classics with a colorful
new feeling.
BY CHUCK BENNETT
Henry Grethel dress shirt
boasts bold Bengal stripes. It's
teamed with geometric-
patterned silk crepe de chine
tie.
96
STYLE
he lights dim and an an-
nouncer's voice comes over
the loud speaker. "Ladies
and gentlemen, please take
your seats; the next show is
about to begin." Two visual
display screens on either side
of a massive runway light up
and flash the name, "Henry Grethel."
A musical recording with a pulsating
beat starts to pump through the sound
system as some of New York's top male
models ease onto the runway. The au-
dience shows its approval with
thunderous applause.
The place is the Rye Town Hilton, in
Rye Brook, New York, 45 minutes drive
from Manhattan. The event is the Men's
Fashion Association Fall 1989 Fashion
Preview, where some 200 designers,
manufacturers and fashion industry
types get together to present and ped-
dle their wares to an equal number of
fashion journalists from across the
country. This was designer Henry
Grethel's presentation.
The Grethel collection reformats the
timeless classics with a modern sen-
sibility. "There's a whole modern feel-
ing in men's fashion this fall," Grethel
explains just minutes before his show.
Grethel encourages a rich blending of
texture and pattern. For instance, he
shows an Aztec-printed wool cardigan
in brown, black and cream over a black
and white striped cotton knit turtleneck
and lush, wide wale corduroy pants.
"We're showing a lot of alternatives
to jeans this season, offering the rustic
finish of washed canvas and wide wale
cords," he continues. "We borrowed
many of our colors from wine
country—vino, bottle, olive, black and
brown as the new neutral."
Actually, it's the color green that
pops up in all clothing categories, a
Henry Grethel's wool and silk
blend plaid sport coat is offset
by patterned cardigan vest and
striped shirt.
constant theme throughout the im-
pressive collections for fall. Whether
utilized as a base color or as an accent,
shades of olive, bottle, moss, hunter
and emerald appear in patterned
sweaters, sport shirts, activewear,
tailored clothing, foul weather gear and
even furs.
Other colors that appear quite fre-
quently across the board are mustard,
plum, amber, bronze, steel gray and
charcoal blue.
"Men are no longer afraid of color,"
says Andrew Fezza, whose collection
received accolades. "I can put a pair of
cranberry pants with a curry-colored
vest and my bright mustard cashmere
jacket and achieve a very sophisticated
look."
Like Grethel, Fezza believes this
season offers men a truly modern look.
He has chosen the best fabrics available
from Italy's renowned mills. And he has
added more in silhouette (such as
trousers with wider bottoms and deeper
pleats) and detail (like a boucle crepe
jacket with wood and metal buttons or
embroidered silk and cotton shirts).
"There's lots of flexibility in this col-
lection," he says. "Nothing is to be
worn in any particular way."
In his well received show, Fezza
presented his plush couture collection
as well as his moderately priced line of
tailored clothing, formalwear, trousers,
and topcoats that he produces for Its-