June 27, 2006

A banker and a skinhead aren't immediately obvious bunk mates, but Neil Barrett explored their unlikely compatibility in his latest collection. What they share is a crisp and codified precision in their approach to dressing, which dovetails with Barrett's own taste for a neat, tight silhouette. He combined the various tokens of boardroom and barroom to create a personal hybrid, and it was intriguing to see how much crossover there was between the two radically different worlds. The skin's pocket chain could easily pass as a banker's fob. And the affection both tribes feel for suspenders gave Barrett a signature graphic for the collection: They were printed front and back on shirts. (To complete the trompe l'oeil effect, another shirt was also printed with a city tie.)

The banker's iconic striped shirt was shown sleeveless (shades of Pete Doherty as dressed by Hedi Slimane), and the pinstriped pants with which it was paired were cropped and tight, another reference to skin style. Equally shrunken was a banker's waistcoat, adapted here in washed black leather and worn with white linen–cotton jeans and the designer's boxing-style take on the Doc Marten boot (literally the foundation of a skin's wardrobe). Barrett's white-laced boots aren't for everyone, and you could argue that he worked the high/low dichotomy to more seductive effect for fall, but this collection still represented a consistently engaging—and timely—clash of the formal and funked-up.

— Tim Blanks