It's apt that Jil Sander was exploring the 'accidental tourist' in her S/S 14 collection. Some of the sportswear looks we've been seeing across all the runways in London seemed to have found their way across the seas to Milan where, naturally, Sander showed them with a classic, perfectionist take.
As always the beauty of the collection came in the impeccable cuts and fabrics, but its real power and creative thrust came in its nods to the zeitgeist. Those super baggy shorts from last S/S had been updated to feel even more modern with hefty three inch turn-ups, which also appeared on skinny trousers, echoing the way hipster boys are wearing their jeans. Similarly, those blouson shirts and and that electric piping on suiting nodded to the way young men are rethinking tailoring and rehashing acceptable codes of formal dress.
Maybe it was the way the models hurriedly cut across each other during the finale, suggesting a bustling city street, or maybe it was that feisty pop of fluorescent pink or even those rushed scribbles on tailoring, but this collection had a real dynamism and urgency to it that reinforced just how good it is to have Jil back.
