Editor’s letter: Andrew Tuck on dressing for the times
The way we choose to dress reveals something of ourselves and also our priorities, while holding a mirror to the times that we live in, reflects our editor in chief, Andrew Tuck. As well as surveying the designers, brands and items that you should know this season, our fashion issue looks at how clothing can stitch us together as a people – whether we’re in Paris, Milan or the shattered cities of Syria.
This is our fashion issue – which means that Natalie Theodosi has had a busy month. In between attending the season’s runway shows, our fashion director has been tracking down new talent, designers on the cusp and creators of products that will turn heads (and stand the test of time) for our Top 25. From a pair of polished Korbinian Ludwig Hess men’s shoes to Saint Laurent’s reinvention of the double-breasted suit, she has you covered.
A good fashion director requires an eye for aesthetics and an ability to articulate how this dynamic, complex industry works. The role also involves understanding that fashion doesn’t stand apart from the world but stitches it together. How we dress reveals who we are and what we think matters, and reflects the times that we find ourselves living in. You’ll find evidence for this beyond the fashion section this month.
In our business pages, Ed Stocker, our man in Milan, meets Morten Thuesen and Letizia Caramia, the founders of uniform company Older. The company started as a ready-to-wear fashion brand in Paris but the couple grew disillusioned with the scene. They changed tack when they spotted the need for good uniforms in kitchens, bars and shops run by people trying to add quality to every experience, to do things better than before. As Stocker reports, “You will see these uniforms in establishments all across Milan, from the bespoke all-black look of retailer 10 Corso Como to the beige aprons used at ceramics producer Officine Saffi Lab and the long-sleeved navy Rudo jackets, complete with woven logo labels, worn by staff at gourmet food shop Terroir.” Older’s looks have taken off with a younger generation of entrepreneurs who know that a uniform can help to make people feel part of a team and broadcast to customers the message, “I am here to help.” It’s such a great antidote to those establishments where you can hardly tell the staff from the customers and are at constant risk of mistakenly asking a fellow diner whether they could perhaps get you another bottle of the nice red. It’s all about showing that you care – and it’s why you will find our café teams looking the part too.
Over the years we have returned again and again to the topic of Syria, a country and a people with so much potential. For this issue’s Expo, we sent our Istanbul correspondent, Hannah Lucinda Smith, and photographer Emin Özmen to Damascus to see how the nation is faring following the fall of Bashar al-Assad. As we went to press, there were reports of violence between the new government’s security forces and Alawite Assad loyalists, as well as civilian deaths – but money, especially from Turkey, is now coming into the country to help rebuild its shattered cities and the people we meet have hope. So far, the transitional president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has managed to hold the disparate groups in his coalition together. Perhaps that all-black military uniform that we see in this Expo has also helped to present a unified front.
Thank you for reading Monocle. If you want to send me an idea or share a story, please email me at at@monocle.com
