Patterns Emerge, Part 3

If you needed any confirmation of the pattern trend, there's already a wealth of prints and patterns that have made their way into Spring 2011 menswear editorials and store deliveries, despite the fact that they didn't seem to resonate as much when the SS 2011 fashion shows made their debut last year. Japan is already rife with pattern mixes, such as this luxe tableau from Vogue Homme Japan (above) and any number of selections from American bastions of Nippon style Woolrich Woolen Mills, Engineered Garments and Nepenthes. Botanicals, paisley bandanna prints and camouflage take over for Spring after the surge of Fall Winter's more saturated plaids and leopard prints (which are still a viable choice if mainstream Givenchy is any indication), while rich Navajo prints give way to more earthy and summery ikats. A quick look at some of my favorites on my Svpply page show an almost dizzying selection of print possibilities on sale (below).

Meanwhile one of GQ Style's European editions declares a psychedelic trend (the busier little brother of the Brights trend fostered by Jil Sander, which I'm not terribly into) which advocates pieces from the likes of Paul Smith and the galactic digital stylings of Christopher Kane. Other menswear designers have embraced prints to varying degrees. Always one for interesting looks, Gaultier's monochrome psychedelia (below) makes a notable splash, with a look that's a nice combo of two other strong trends this season, photo prints and denim. Elswhere, Givenchy's leopard tour-de-force of a Spring collection gives mainstream menswear cred to the two year old animal print trend.

Of course, designers may be offering them up but that doesn't mean regular men will be adopting them in droves. The planet's stylemakers, however, had already been sporting colorful, rich mixes well before they showed up in the magazine pages of your local newsagent. For recent real-life inspiration, a click-through scan of Tommy Ton's reportage shots from last Fall's menswear shows in Paris and Milan showed many attending male fashion editors and stylists brandishing prints, patterns and colors to inspiring effect. While much of it was offset with solids and neutral and somber hues, there's no doubt that there's a wealth of patterns being proffered. GQ's site is the host for Tommy Ton's print-happy camera lens, which is ironic in the sense that the styles photographed are much more adventurously mixed than American GQ itself eschews at the moment.

(montages from Tommy Ton's GQ street style slideshow)

From many angles in fashion news, it's pretty clear that a pattern trend is emerging in menswear right now, and the results are - in a very good way, I'd say - quite mixed.