Pitti Uomo: Fashion Expert Derek Guy on How Menswear Has Loosened Up

The ubiquity of slim-cut men’s tailoring appears to be dwindling, as the styles showcased at June’s Pitti Immagine Uomo 108 trade fair in Florence, Italy—and worn by the well-dressed denizens of fashion who flocked there—suggested.

“The major change, and I think the one that’s obvious, is that men’s tailoring and clothing in general is loosening up again,” fashion blogger Derek Guy—the internet’s “menswear guy”—told Newsweek. “So, after 20 years of slim-fit silhouettes, things are starting to loosen up.”

“If you go back 15 years ago, among the men who wore ready-to-wear suits, their tailoring was often very trim, keeping with the time,” Guy continued. “And now…there’s slouch shirt tailoring, extended shoulders, wider trousers, so and so forth.”

But just because these looser styles are in vogue, it’s not a fashion requisite. The best way to express yourself through clothing, as Guy put it, is to focus on your personal aesthetic preferences and try to emulate that.

“I think of clothing as social language. So, to me, just because the trend is shifting toward looser silhouettes doesn’t necessarily mean you have to,” Guy said. “Part of this is just about building your visual vocabulary and going through cultural history and understanding how people create certain looks—to understand how you can use that visual language today.”

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