Lighting up catwalks from New York to Milan there can be little doubt that embroidered shirts are one of the trends to watch. The embroidered shirts trend was not, however uniform – it showed itself in a variety of incarnations. While houses like Gucci emblazoned gaudy and emotive embroidered symbols on their outfits, others proffered an entirely different interpretation of the embroidery fashion trend.
Dries Van Noten, for example, harked back to the gilded embroidery of Renaissance tailoring, baring more in common with a Moroni painting than some of the designs rolled out by the house’s peers. Embroidered shirts are doubtlessly a trend that’s here to stay, so let's unpack the five houses who do those best.
Gucci
Alessandro Michele, Gucci’s star fashion director fired the starting gun for the embroidered shirts trend with the house’s iconic SS17 show. Shrouded in a smoky haze, the runway was covered in gaudy red carpet intended to evoke a 1970s nightclub. It was a taste of what was to come, with Michele’s Gucci collection drinking deep from the well of 1970s influences. The house's shirts and dresses were embroidered in mysterious symbols as if harking back to Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides. The show struck a dark note, with one tiered evening dress embellished with a red embroidered heart, pierced by a dagger below the numerals XXV – Michele’s lucky number. This particular look is a mysterious blend of light and dark, a reworking of classic symbols in a gauche, iconoclastic way almost reminiscent of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet.
Jason Wu
Jason Wu’s contribution to the embroidery fashion trend, struck a distinctly lighter note with a show all about embracing the seasons. With floral summer shirts and dresses falling just below the knee, the SS17 Jason Wu flirts with the classic tropes of summer fashion. With a house like Jason Wu, however, these tropes are reliably lifted to the level of high fashion. The house lends its haute couture levels of craftsmanship to the collection, embroidering each floral detail with exquisite precision to the point where the cumulative effect is as if the floral detailing was itself alive on the garment.
Être Cécile
The young Parisian house Être Cécile jumped on the embroidered shirts trend with its own unique take on the look. Founded by two young British designers as their unique take on classic French style, Être Cécile shares its light-hearted, playful outsider’s view on French fashion with other émigré houses like Charlotte Olympia. Embroidered shirts from the label are a playful take on the classic oxford shirt, with animal patterns embroidered into the frontage – best worn as part of a classic Parisienne ensemble with skinny jeans and pumps. If the embroidered shirt isn’t your thing, the house also has a line of equally playful sweatshirts.
Kenzo
The real trailblazer of the embroidered sweatshirt game is, of course, Kenzo. Embroidery clothing is to Kenzo what the scarf is to Hérmes: other houses might try their hand at the style as it goes in and out of fashion, but Kenzo will always be the mainstay of the embroidered sweatshirt. Branching out from their now-iconic embroidered tiger design, Kenzo sweatshirts now explore a variety of engaging embroidered motifs and patterns each reflecting the house’s east/west fusion. A favourite subject of street style photographer Tommy Ton, the Kenzo sweatshirt is one of fashion’s most versatile garments and can be worn with anything from torn boyfriend jeans to a gold chain-link necklace.
Alexander McQueen
No house does embroidered designer shirts quite like Alexander McQueen. A fact which is hardly surprising given the young Lee McQueen cut his teeth as a tailor on Saville Row, developing a passion for embroidery and the intricacies of the trade. He brought this passion to his house, Alexander McQueen, and it’s a trend his successors have followed since his death. Like the designer himself, the house’s embroidery oscillates between light and dark influences. In the past, the house has referenced the Renaissance with its ornately embroidered shirts and dresses with Early Modern motifs woven into everything from the dress’ frontage to its sleeves. As the embroidery fashion trend took off in shows all over the world in SS17, Alexander McQueen issued its own response, a celebration of embroidery as a craft, specifically Scottish embroidery.
The embroidered shirts trend is one of 2017's richest. With many of the world's top designers proffering their own takes on the look, there's no shortage of fashion muscle and styling inspiration to craft the perfect embroidered shirt look.