What Fashion Season Is It Anyway

Do people have their seasons read anymore?

It’s hard to pinpoint when the fad began for determining personality type or what to wear seasonally based on answers to quizzes correlating the color of one’s eyes or wallet, whether one is "authoritative and assertive" or "gentle and approachable," or if you prefer puppies to pussy cats.

Yet the questionnaires are still out there, all over the web. And, having just completed one, I can report that if I were a season, I would be summer: "Bright and cheerful and rarely in a bad mood!" Having always thought of myself as more of a fall (or possibly a fall transitioning to winter, given to moments as bright as a turning leaf, along with the crepuscular funks brought on by the waning light), I find this baffling.

And it occurs to me that in failing to keep up with the new climate realities — like the chill and biblical rains that have afflicted much of Europe this year — those loopy New Age surveys have something in common with the designers showing their spring 2017 men’s wear on runways here.

Thus — as handsome and restrained as were the oversized trenches and tidy suits that Rodolfo Paglialunga showed at Jil Sander; as closely as the modular elements hewed to a design idiom honed long ago by Ms. Sander (seeming more than ever like a modern master); as discreet as the palette of pale taupe, washy ombré blues and greens; as unostentatious as the effects achieved by a squared-off worker’s jacket rendered with a notched lapel or a dark floral pattern abstracted so it resembles oil slick on the floor of a garage — the collection left a viewer in some confusion.

What is it exactly about a boxy knee-length coat in black leather that says vernal to Mr. Paglialunga? How about a duster coat the size of a pup tent? Could Mr. Paglialunga be a winter who has mistaken himself for a spring? Or do none of us know what season we’re in anymore?

The thought nagged at me throughout the first two days of shows here, when designers like Neil Barrett again offered a display of why he remains a durable presence in a fickle business with a typically disciplined collection of bomber jackets with diagonal inserts reminiscent of marquetry; mock turtlenecks; safari, field and bomber jackets in a palette inspired by American television shows popular throughout Britain in the ’70s (YouTube almost any old Soul Train episode for a glimpse of those cognac, butterscotch, chocolate and gold hues), and slim, high-waist denim trousers.

Yet there was something seasonally discordant. The aural backdrop for the Barrett show was a doomy cover of "California Dreamin’," a tune that, for all it contributed to mythos of sunny Southern California, was written in New York during a particular bitter winter in 1963.

Though hardly suggestive of picnics or beach trips, as least the leather coats and blazers in Consuelo Castiglioni’s show for Marni didn’t read like body armor. In fact, the leather was shaved to considerable lightness and leavened further by the sprightly game of peekaboo Ms. Castiglioni seemed to be playing with all the other clothes. Detaching waistbands from trousers and shorts, slicing a deep V into coats and jackets at the nape of the neck, she reattached and suspended the elements using Velcro tabs.

Possibly it was this designer’s accustomed offbeat way of using elements of dress all around us — kiddie pull-ups, zip-apart travelers’ chinos, hospital gowns — to translate for men the success she’s had in creating the kind of irresistible (though wacko) women’s wear that blogs like Man Repeller were created to celebrate.

Are men in large numbers prepared to geek out along with Ms. Castiglioni’s girl posse? That remains to be seen; Marni is a distinctly specialized taste. Likely, though, when her clothes reach stores, some of the more outré styling elements will have fallen away and consumers will be left with things like finely proportioned shorts and trousers that are more consistent with current trends among the cool dudes of Tokyo and Seoul, South Korea, than much in Italian design. They will also have an opportunity to buy some of her sling-back sandals made from what look like inner tubes — Marni’s answer to Crocs.

It’s worth noting here that weird footgear has become a leitmotif in men’s fashion. Everyone seems to produce it now except shoe companies. First out were the fur-lined, snaffle-bit slip-ons that became the first runaway hit for Alessandro Michele after he took over as Gucci’s creative director. Then there were the platform-soled espadrilles Prada sold so briskly you could never find them in stock. Now, in a play made by Mauro Ravizza Krieger, creative director of the Italian tailoring house Pal Zileri, we have another appealing stunt shoe of a type that I have never seen before.

It is amazing, given the sheer laziness of most men, that it took someone this long to come up with a pair of backless slip-on brogues. The shoes were a memorable foundation on which to build an otherwise uninspiring apparel collection. If they catch on, as it seems likely, there will be joy in the halls of Mayhoola for Investments, the Qatar-based investor group that bought a majority stake in Pal Zileri in 2014 (after paying $850 million for Valentino two years earlier).

The sartorial indecision worked into concepts like athleisure or business casual are not likely to vanish anytime soon. Why not have a pair of shoes that looks from the front like dad’s formal lace-ups but that you can kick off as easily as shower shoes?

Why not take that notion a step further by designing a suit whose trousers are, in actuality, a form of tailored track pants; or pair floaty skimmer coats as billowing as a spinnaker with form-fitting biker pants; or show lightweight structured suits with no shirts beneath them; or anoraks over pajamas you can wear while making your deals on the phone, just like Howard Hughes used to do?

These elements went into a collection Donatella Versace presented on Saturday afternoon, one of her finest in recent seasons, a show memorable as much for the invitation it extended to reflect on continuity, community and survival as for anything she sent onto the runway. Less than a week after the mass murder at Pulse, the Latin and gay dance club in Orlando, Fla., a designer whose brother was shot to death 19 years ago next month on his Miami Beach doorstep chose to open her presentation by screening a short video commissioned from Bruce Weber on the subject of Chicago.

By now most people are aware that surging gun violence in that great and benighted Midwestern city has driven deaths there to record numbers. During the first quarter of this year, Chicago recorded 141 homicides; according to police data, the city is on track to record more than 500 killings in 2016. Despite the dire statistics, both the film and the show telegraphed a different message, one of belief and optimism that, in Ms. Versace’s case, is truly hard-won.

Whatever else anyone has to say about her, no one can dispute that Donatella Versace has kept the faith.

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