Winter Florals

Floral print is a spring/summer trend that makes sense. Albeit something of a cliche, it’s a predictable explosion of flowers and colour timed to complement the heralding of the new season, both in nature and fashion.

Once solely a female staple, over the last few years the trend has crossed into menswear at both designer and high street level. Men have lapped up big tropical motifs or more delicate paisley prints in holiday-friendly brights or more sombre palettes for back home.

Yet what usually ends around now, autumn, has not only carried on, but morphed into a new type of floral for AW14. Wasn’t this once the season of grey days and long dark nights? Not anymore.

Call it fashion’s answer to global warming, or the rise of Instagram fashion, but these days it doesn’t matter what season it is, so long as you’re making a statement.

And this year, flowers are giving us men the style power to make it through the darker months…

The Designer Influence

At London Collections: Men, Burberry Prorsum’s AW14 collection explored the worlds of painters Ben Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Lucian Freud and Duncan Grant. Rich William Morris-style leaves that look like they’ve been taken from the walls of Oscar Wilde’s bedroom were applied to everything from shirts and coats to accessories.

Influenced by these artists’ works and their style of dress, along with the interiors of Charleston House in Sussex, home of the Bloomsbury Group, the designs were hand-painted in graphic patterns featuring soft, rounded brush strokes inspired by nature, flowers and leaves.

Other British designers such as Casely-Hayford showed textured sweaters featuring oversized tropical flowers in bold primary colours, while Christopher Shannon went with tracksuits and shirts featuring a houndstooth and daisy print.