Aldo Maria Camillo, Meta Campania Collective and Berluti

There is a new generation of menswear creators like Aldo Maria Camillo and Meta Campania who rubbed shoulders with uber luxe labels like Berluti this season in Paris menswear. We visited those three. 
 

Aldo Maria Camillo: Italo-Nippon cool

“Before I would cloth wash my fabrics, now I garment wash. I like to get that slightly lived in effect,” smiled Aldo Maria Camillo, at his presentation in the 9th arrondissement.

Camillo loves a straight jacket made with a forgiving cut, so much that a pair of lithe dancers performed in his studio presentation, looking entirely at ease in his suits.
 
This Italian designer has a novel format. In that he manufactures all the collection in Japan, using Japanese fabrics, but keeping his Italian sartorial codes. Then garment washes to gracefully age his wardrobe, adding a certain envergure, as the French say.

Back before Covid, his debut single collection in Pitti was a huge hit, garnering orders from Matches and Arrows in Japan. After the global slowdown in the pandemic, Aldo Maria if anything has emerged stronger, with a new Japanese backer and his Italo-Nippon concept reinforced.
 
The results were cool faded chalk stripe double breasted suits in the driest of wools, finished with satin lapel; roomy pleated pants and cool super 100 wool pinstripe overshirts. Completed with bespoke cuffs with button openings and his signature washed white cotton linings, everything felt just right. And very Aldo Maria.
 

Meta Campania Collective: A dance to the photography of Mario Sorrenti

Another dance performance at the presentation of Meta Campania, a burgeoning brand who showed in small art gallery near the Louvre.

 
Italian-made, though by a design duo far from the peninsula – Jon Strassburg and Heiko Keinath.
 
Also like Aldo Maria, Meta Campania often favors dry wools, and a lived-in look. A brand that is light years from the formal pomposity of many old Italian sartorial labels one sees in Milan, while still using plenty of top tailoring skills.
 
Meta Campania played cleverly with natty petrol blue corduroy looks; soft cashmere jumpsuits and with several workerist jackets – coloring the latter in expressionist daubs.
 
Adding to the particular aesthetic, Meta Campania asked Mario Sorrenti to photograph a group of friends, family and artists wearing the collection and the result was a clever compendium of Meta Campania cerebral chic. Most definitely a brand on the move.

Berluti: Still no designer, yet a credible collection

Berluti has been without a proper official designer since several seasons, but the collection it showed this season turned out to be, well, rather well designed.

Wisely, it was presented in a beautiful mansion in St. Germain, the better to highlight the rarefied quality of the shoes, bags and striped back clothes.
 
One could only covet the ribbed suede jean jackets; Neapolitan style double-face cashmere jackets and impeccable blousons in the house’s signature burnished leather. 
 
Admittedly, there were a couple of truly appalling attempts at hiking sneakers and an unhappy new thick soled country moccasin. But a new series of bespoke tooled leather gents’ shoes, which came in trios and not pairs, with the third shoe a plain version, were uber luxe for the 1%, and supremely well crafted.
 
No sign of the house’s new CEO Jean-Marc Mansvelt, who succeeded Antoine Arnault on Jan 1. But let’s give the man time to get his feet under the desk. We have seen many brands in far worse shape.