Bless up from your feet to your head top
We go again,
I appreciate the sight of a great graphic and printing process. I was raised off the vinyl and screen printing process, my adoration has only grown in European fashion industry. As printing and the appropriation of cultural pattern techniques of Dries 
to the rediscovery of a printing process by Hermes.
It’s safe to say patterns and prints are still very much alive, we can talk of Prada to off white having graphics as a staple. 
It is important to the aesthetic of high fashion and since the involvement of more culturally American ideals of graphic tees, they penetrate the zeitgeist and sweep through most fashion houses – Balenciaga, Isabel Marant, Alexander McQueen – all different houses all use a similar print type.
It has to be said though, surely as much as the houses do this, we can say it is just as important to the consumer it’s done right and is happy with the print and final product, this low quality high yield export of fashion houses is a gold mine.
The typeface print came into vogue in the earlier 2000’s, as heritage houses needed market relevance for youth and the best way to do that was to have a strong and “timeless” typeface. 
This trend went through an uptick in the 2010’s and most new fashion startups came in with graphic tees with the name plastered across the chest, there was a further evolution in the manipulation of the type to make a more unique expression and further still with a logo/type ‘lockup‘ (where you will pair the type and logo together in a unique fashion). 
As we have all instances now all being used up-to-date, I feel there’s a need-to-know how to use and how to create more dynamic prints using true art philosophy principles. In Animation we learned there are 12 principles to animation and until we are solid in the standard replication of life, some of us would have naturally expressive animation principles for me it was Squash & stretch, and appeal and exaggeration etc.
In graphics I see people using certain principles on trend consistently and there’s been no elevation. Particularly in fashion I’m incredibly fond of how people use art philosophies to their advantage and use them to manipulate their clothes cut aesthetic etc. When it comes to print patterns and sigils I’m noticing a restlessness and disgruntled vitriol towards the use of graphics and prints in fashion. It’s a big trend of people to not buy into a brands merchandise if it has graphics. There’s also a trend of people who love graphics to have them everywhere as if the garment is nascar advertising. As far as I can see there’s a very full hog or not at all, we are still at the point where there’s not a dynamic range of what people will accept or won’t have as it pertains to graphics/patterns/prints.
My interpretation of patterns prints and graphics comes from, over 10 years in the Art industry studying and developing keen sight for different techniques used in all art from different painting techniques; particular cutting techniques; and more to the point of this article; sorting what fashion designs belong in which art discipline. Kiko being Abstract Modernism and Yeezy fitting into biomorphism etc. 
Biomorphic art Marc Newson & Mathian Bengtsson
As a start jump off point I want to use some of this seasons fashion shows and focus totally on the prints/patterns/graphics. Interpret them for what they mean to the trained eye of the artist. Not to drag on I will use 3 examples, and then give an overall thought on evolution points, much like my increasingly read A Dialogue on the new design language and Design Trends where I talk about the new design language, which will be developed after this. Talking more on the masculine functions of design in parity with the more feminine garments.
Richard Quinn
Richard Quinn is well known for flowery, 70’s table setting like print on his garments repurposed for high fashion. The purely British designer creates prints with the help of epsom, in recent years to create his appropriated Sentai Suit (sentai suit is Japanese fetish wear), in Britain its better known as the morph suit. He would be what would happen if (IG)Checking Invoices had a fashion house. The principles of Art he uses in presentation are quite dark and romantic, and has some comically hitchcock charm, nominally pointing to his 2016 collection. His amalgam of influences bought us here the brunt of his designs are graphic print influenced, and you can even call flowers his monogram. He does have some flashy big bold bright prints I see the most confident of people wearing, giving us true 70’s (tablecloth) glamour.
Fashion aesthetic wise they would call it maximalism, they are very much wear or be worn garments, pieces evening wear. 
With all that being said Richard can be seen as too comical, and sarcastic as well as repetitive to some consumers and critics. This would not be the first time a designer took an idea for one collection and ran with it for the foreseeable future, I’m looking namely at Chanel and YSL. Both some great names to be in the same company with but were both known for one trick and didn’t evolve past that. As a fellow Briton I would hate to see Richard on the Parisian path of perishing by ones own sword.
Thebe Magugu SS21
Thebe Magugu is a designer and social activist who designs out of South Africa, who uses many pleats and patterns throughout his work. His womenswear takes deeply from his rich heritage with very feminine cuts and almost genderless tailoring. It’s safe to say for me he’s a great designer, for this collection in particular the graphics and prints were very much left on the nose. Possibly because the reference was so rich he decided not to adapt and conceptualise but that’s exactly when you should
As the above images give detail of the ideas Thebe gives us, as you can tell the right (Zebra Mud set) has had so much consideration put into the marbling and aurora. The history behind the look on the left of the scanned fingerprints from the South African spy Olivier Anne Marie Forsyth have had no art consideration taken past its use value making it much more pop art and Warholian than the dark and gothic principles he’s using for the collection. As we know his feminine aesthetic is not one that takes in masculine energy very well, so it envelopes it and you lose the grit that the collection is portraying feeling, more copy and paste than part of a seamless storytelling series. Of course there’s artistic interpretations but there is also pushing the boundaries of your art and experimentation, meaning you can have this along with another interpretation that we can see Thebe is really pulling and stretching her mind to curate.
I find storytelling of the upmost importance, in this collection it’s surely there the ask once that’s complete is delivering something more than we have seen from you at least. I would be remiss if I said it wasn’t important to plainly drive the point home with African history references, as for those who aren’t well read it’s the first time they seen them. So drip feeding can be seen as an artistic method, however I doubt he will use this reference in the near future as it’s not common for designers to repeat references.
Our generation is prone to storytelling and taking references what I pray for is being able to expand those references further. To do so – he would need to repeat this reference over in a series of collections to drive the point home – if that happens there’s much more stock in this collection.
Further than we have seen from any other generation before, as our interpolations should build up off previous generations, and not pop art rendition of things that are long past.
Dries Van Noten
I want to use Dries Van Noten as an example, first I would like to say I find his prints to be the best in the industry and most sensual and attractive. He has a good blend of masculine and feminine art pieces he blends season after season. As much as his art style is prominent it is still foundational to art, and there’s thorough thought put into which ones he chooses to put on garments and then on the runway. With a mix of all methods from photography to graphic design, photos manipulation, hydro dipping, water transfer printing; you can almost always say he has surrealism and abstract expressionism under his belt. Colour being high on the list, fashion people will call it maximalist. His work you can certainly call high fashion, for the decades he has been about the foundations certainly aren’t moved, people who are new to fashion are usually new to design and are learning on the fly while developing garments.
In the developments of prints patterns and graphics one has to think about use, texture, tone, value, placement on the body these are principles people pay high prices for and I will be writing about on later dates the gist of the philosophy behind it is the manipulation of masculine and feminine energies.
Fabric Grouping
This comes from the type of colours and textures someone uses. The most blatant example would be Concrete Grey and, – you put both of those colours more often than not the masculine will be prone to picking grey, you see this in the casual dress of today as grey is easy to pair. – A choice between Rouge and Grey a more feminine person will be prone to picking that colour for no other reason than it looks pretty or aesthetic.
As the simple Gist of how colour effects the perception of an article of clothing. I want to get to the grouping of fabrics in the industry and their use value as it pertains to menswear and womenswear.
There are fabrics we see used over and over in womenswear, how those fabrics are interpreted in menswear is strikingly different in comparison. I will always use the tongue in cheek example of
“men need clothes they can fight in and regardless of the situation if the don’t feel comfortable fighting or running in them they won’t wear it.”
The reality is most time depending on the situation men will wear what’s necessary, the categories being work, chores, lounge, sport. Their fanciest clothes are usually their most expensive, going out clothes can range from a trackSUIT to a shirt and their best pair of jeans. That is fashion to most men and the fabrics reflect that Denim, polyester/cotton, wool some viscose coat with cotton/down filling. All easy wear and easy clean, the brunt of menswear has more to do with daily task than aesthetic.
Silk applications
In menswear silk is majority of the time pyjama – minority for evening wear – and for the adventurous, it has a silk screen decoration or some type of ornamental embroidery. On the womenswear side silk is used for a variety of clothing options, from dresses day wear evening wear, accessories, underwear and pyjamas. The utilisation of soft free flowing fabric in menswear is always taken as feminine. The cuts are more lounge orientated, in womenswear they’re diverse just as polyesters application would be in menswear. Linen, chiffon, and rayon are all treated in this same way for menswear with common deviation.
Leather applications
Leather on the other hand is used in both, mens and womenswear in high demand frequently for the same things. Jackets boots trousers gloves and sometimes hats, having such a hard fabric to manipulate being used in high demand isn’t common. There’s more of a luxury in leather works than let’s say denim, another common versatile fabric. What the difference may be in silk and leather, to the eye though is the texture. The rugged outer shell well cured skin of the animal hide that can be aged beautifully and give off a great patina for years to come, a skin that can be so supple and smooth and also ripple with the concave and convex grade of hide.
There’s many uses and manipulation value for leather, it’s versatility to be both hard and smooth, soft and gritty, no one will bat an eye whoever wears leather because it’s not just a luxury it’s real, it’s a reality fabric. You know the type of leather you wear says something about you, a material that can grow an age with you.
Breaking Print Boundaries
Creating prints in menswear are one of the more tougher things to do, men in general will commonly go for a plain type or small logo over a great big art piece. Although there’s some resurgence in the graphic tee sector of band tees from the 70’s/80’s and people updating these graphics. For today they are more often than not references of old graphics and not necessarily pushing boundaries of ornamentation. There’s not many ways people manipulate graphics or print, to have them both versed in the masculine and feminine like leather. Most ornamentation or decoration try to romance you, it’s rare to see a designer try to hit you over the head with a graphic or print. Some would say Mowalola with the leather coat collaboration but that is one instance of graphics and it was not elevated in any way.
What would be decent is seeing more masculine and more textures used in 2D graphic form transform them into patterns and prints for collections 
What I love so much about the Louis Vuitton 2054 collection is that it utilises colour and texture in such a rich way and it’s actually trying to push the boundaries of what is acceptable for menswear.
There’s not many designations out there for what this collection was attempting which is why I still think of it today. I think much more can be done to manipulate the fundamental principles of leather into prints worthy of actions and highly confident garments.
To me this is a subject of inquiry worth delving into for more than a collection or two, an application of this sort should be in any collection that considers itself menswear moving forward. I have major ideas for applications of this sort and a library of graphic examples to take the curation of menswear to a new height and would love menswear designers to get round to making these collections more vibrant with prints patterns and graphics that aren’t flowers or type or some sort of floral motif.
Editors note
I don’t have more to give without giving away my own personal well researched ideas but I do hope prints taking in more avant-garde masculine aesthetics within other labels and houses using this dissertation as a prompt to engage in a more thoughtful print dialogue when creating patterns for collections.
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