Fashion week descended upon Paris twice in the past two weeks…huh? Yep! Mens’ fashion, and then couture… the ladies are swooning by sheer overload of lovely things to oggle…

I got to attend the Songzio mens show, on January 23rd at the Bataclan, where I saw Tim Van Steenbergen last October, and where I was able to discover this time a Korean designer who incorporates a traditional “warrior” dress style into his line while making it fit into today’s fashion, and it works surprisingly enough. His palette is rather dark in this collection (for Autumn and Winter 2011-2012) with just a few (very few) flashes of red…(a splash of blood…?). His models were quite hooded by hats or hooded sweaters and coats, keeping that martial arts fighter stealth alive. I don’t know how popular on the street those shorts that always pop up in his collections will be…perhaps they were more shorts in Korea? But his coats are gorgeous on those boys… They flow around the knees just slightly as the men strode down the catwalk, and held a moody-broody stillness around the collar.

After a little research, I noticed that his collections don’t change too drastically from one season to the next, and I actually like this kind of designer, that has a particular style and sticks to it, to develop and perfect over time. Fads, are fads… it’s better to stay true to your own vision than try to follow the vision of the mass markets…. we all know how volatile those are!

Songzio