Who wears the (leather) pants in your workplace? Do you have colleagues who play out microaggressions, social transgressions, and ambitious expressions through their choice of office attire? This was the conceptual starting point for Jonny Johansson this season, who said he wanted to explore “unspoken hierarchies” in the workplace as played out through menswear. “Office life is the opposite of stiffness,” he observed. “I see it as a playground for my imagination, where I can subvert the codes of a wardrobe.”
My use of that quotation, taken from his press release, reflects a professional lapse on my part: it was so hot on the ride to this appointment that my overheated phone failed to register its recording of our lengthy and typically stimulating chat. Time for a trade-in (of the phone).
But no matter. From memory, Johansson’s imaginary office featured a well-dressed but emotionally absent boss, a deputy who carried the creative weight of the office and internally seethed about his lack of authority, a personable extrovert of a receptionist who had the coolest style of all, and some further cameos, possibly from temporary hires.
Highlights from the employee-of-the-month selection included chinos, cut-off chinos, some lovely denim chinos, a classic Acne biker jacket, and a white Acne Canadian tuxedo combining a cropped Type III-style jacket and skinny jeans, plus black winklepickers (a term Johansson confessed was new to him). There was a super-interesting three-layered integrated knit argyle tri-set which created countless styling opportunities and would probably be favored by a colleague who was both slightly irritating and irritatingly efficient. A coach jacket in shiny berry nylon satin and an amazing matte off-blue reversible dad-blouson were both alpha-commuter pieces, but the big boss was a drawstring-waisted photographer’s jacket with big epaulettes and generous action shoulders: an executive level piece built for the man who deserves his reserved space in the company carpark.
“Stockholm: Center Of The Universe” and “Creative Being” T-shirts both looked like printed-up props for a motivational away day, and had charm. There was a cool Type II-ish ice wash trucker jacket and some great pleated microcheck pleated golf shorts: both dad and rad. There were slacks for slackers and t-shirts with scribbled on ties and shirt pockets for ambitious interns. The result of Johansson’s storyboarding was a highly characterful collection that carried Acne’s trademark jolt of positively unhinged distinction.
