If you found yourself gazing down at your mid-wash jeans and chunky trainers after the turn of the new year and worrying that maybe, just maybe menswear was beginning to get a little stale again, allow us to put your mind at ease: it’s not.

Far from it in fact, because 2019 promises to be a year of change in the world of men’s fashion. High-profile label hookups, industry shakeups, and a focus on sustainability are just some of the events expected to rattle menswear’s Richter scale for the next 12 months, and it’s all coming courtesy of brands old and new, big and small.

These are the brands that will turn your head in 2019, igniting trends, change and quite probably a purchase or two.

Timberland

News in October that fashion-week favourite Christopher Raeburn would be taking the reins at American lifestyle brand Timberland may have come as a surprise to some, but for others it made perfect sense. Here were a label and a designer, both with a strong focus on eco-friendly production and purposeful design, both eager to take things to the next level.

And that’s exactly what we can expect over the course of the next year and beyond. Raeburn has made it clear he has big plans for Timberland, saying he wants to stay true to the brand’s iconic image and ethos, while pushing boundaries to their very limits. Think bleeding edge materials, utilitarian design with a streetwear tinge and clothes you can wear and wear. Excited? Us too.

Alyx

If you’d started talking about your “chest rig” prior to 2018, we might have thought you were describing a particularly complex inhaler invented to keep your asthma under control. Now, however, and thanks in no small part to boundary-pushing fashion label Alyx, we know that you’d be referring to your £400, luxury Italian-made harness bag.

But military-inspired receptacles are merely the tip of a very fashionable iceberg. And while the Matthew Williams-led label has been a quietly disruptive force, growing in the shadows for the past few years – Williams has produced bespoke buckles for Kim Jones at Dior, for example – 2019 promises to be the year it emerges fully and plants its flag on men’s fashion. Warcore, anyone?