Menswear Collections At DC Fashion Week: A Bit of Gangster, A Bit of Gigalo, But Overall - Pretty Interesting...

After a few tense nights of going through all the photos from the DC Fashion Week menswear collections' runaways, I narrowed it down to a few that stood out.

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that a lot of those collections are inspired by very urban African-American culture. When the first models came out on the runaway, I knew the collection might have been from a Washington, DC based designer, who is African-American...It was just very prominent, very obvious, and to some degree - [stereotypical and typical] - of an African-American culture: very splashy, gaudy, rich, cheerful, colorful...and a bit of gangster and gigolo.


 And it was. Most of the menswear collections presented at DC Fashion Week were from the African-American designers.

The reason I thought so was that, based on what I've seen so far in the city - from the local [DC] arts, designs, cuisine and entertainment scene - DC has a very prominent African-American community. Many interesting, unique shops around the city. Many cafes and book shops.

One of my favorites, for example, is - Busboys and Poets. It's a cafe slash restaurant slash book store slash lounge slash stand-up comedy, poetry and jazz club slash a young professionals' computer station...It immerses in all of it and offers amazing ambivalence that lures back for more. I've been there for brunch, lunch and dinner. I've browsed through some very interesting - and [mostly] - African-American literature and art - and I've tested their awesome cocktails... OK, I just got off  track of what's the blog post is all about (I guess it's time for lunch...I'm getting hungry!).

Here are the menswear collections by Andrew Nowell Menswear, Top Rank, Paul Koko, Estella Couture, Mason Sylvester, Ray Vincent, Ean Williams, and Olga De Nogga...I kind of digg a few of them :)