Martin Andersson found a muse for his fall collection: the “Prince of Cool,” jazz trumpeter Chet Baker.
Andersson, creative director for Theory menswear, pored through photos of the musician during his heyday in the 1950s and used that as inspiration to create what he called “the perfect fall wardrobe for our New York guy.”
In the eight years since taking the design helm of the men’s collection, Andersson has been working to “expand the world of Theory,” he said, both in terms of silhouette, volume and texture, as well as the addition of more-casual pieces.
That was evident in the fall collection where he moved beyond the brand’s signature technical fabrics into an array of pieces with different textures.
But whether performance or lifestyle pieces, the collection as a whole delivered what he described as an “effortless beauty. You shouldn’t have to think too much about a Theory garment. You just throw it on and it makes you feel good. It makes you look good.”
Andersson leaned into texture with chunky bouclé sweaters, corduroy pants and lightweight quarter-zips. The shearling of the season is reversible, cardigans and twinsets were offered in a yak fabric, there was a water-resistant corduroy puffer and a flight jacket in technical wool with a removable shearling collar.
But Andersson didn’t completely move away from the brand’s technical heritage. For fall, he embraced both Motion Wool and Motion Nylon and also offered an extension into Motion Poplin for shirts, a machine-washable, temperature-regulating stretch fabric that looks like a traditional dress shirt. The technical pieces included a single-breasted suit jacket, a parka filled with Primaloft, a relaxed pant with an elastic waist, a hidden placket shirt, a shirtjacket with a lightweight fill and a technical wool puffer in a classic car coat shape.
And he also dabbled in denim by offering a button-down overshirt, a straight-leg jean and a utility jacket in a natural wash.
Fall also marked the launch of 2 Gansevoort — a selection of elevated knits, suits and outerwear made from baby yak yarns, cashmere and wool. The wool knit suit jacket is unlined and unstructured and paired with wide-leg pleated pants. The sweaters made from yak are as soft as cashmere but have a “bounce” to them as well, he said. And the belted wool coat with a throat latch completed the message of “New York at night — dressed and elegant, but with an ease to it,” he said.
2 Gansevoort — named after the studio’s address in New York’s Meatpacking District — is an extension of the Atelier collection introduced this fall. But while the Atelier collection was higher-priced, 2 Gansevoort is able to retail at the same price as the regular collection, “so everyone can participate,” Andersson said. “We call it disrupting luxury.”
