Balmy beach getaways may be off the cards for many of us this summer, but, if what we’ve seen at the Milan Fashion Week Men’s shows so far is anything to go by, nothing will be getting between us and Europe’s sunny shores this time next year. Yesterday, we saw Prada take to Sardinia’s rocky shores for its parade of micro-mini shorts, christening SS22 the season of Thigh-Guy Summer. Making just as convincing a case for our collective return to beach life in a year’s time, though, was Massimo Giorgetti, the founder of Milanese street luxe label MSGM.
Drawing inspiration from photographer and surfer Stephen Miilner’s A Spiritual Good Time series — a queered chronicle of Californian surf culture — Massimo took to the rugged Tuscan coast along with photographer Francesco Nazardo and filmmaking collective No Text Azienda to lens his own highly romantic beachside vignette for MSGM’s SS22 menswear presentation.
To a euphorically spiralling soundtrack scored by neo-trance artist Lorenzo Senni, bleach-haired boys in sunset-hued separates and lavender knits gaze out over a turquoise sea, with some of them floating face-up in its lapping waves. Elsewhere, this sense of bucolic seaside fantasy feeds into the collection’s graphic vocabulary — the most noteworthy elements being the marine motifs that act as thematic anchors for the collection — indigo seashells and snarling fish rendered in intarsia on chunky knit sweaters, crab prints on frayed-edge hoodies, and acid-hued shark paisleys decorating boxy cotton shirts, shorts and calf-length leggings.
These graphic elements are given a faintly psychedelic twist through the collection’s palette — warm orange gradients and mottled purple tie-dyes call a cloud-refracted ocean sunset to mind, while outerwear and sunglasses in Stabilo-tone yellows, greens and blue convey a strong nostalgia for the blissed-out heyday of early Italo-house — an energy we’re all keen to summon as we gear up for what has already been branded a ‘Third Summer of Love’. If you’re looking for a new set of fittingly peacockish rave lewks, look no further!
