Fashion: the spring-summer 2024 menswear report

What kind of guy typifies the menswear mood of the season? Well: “He’s probably wearing a looser-fitting, relaxed T-shirt with an overshirt and wide-leg trousers. And he’s wearing functional trainers like New Balance or Hoka. He’s a considered shopper who is style savvy but sensible – hard-working pieces are what he’s after.”

It’s a description that comes like clockwork to Brown Thomas Arnotts’ menswear buyer Alison Daly, and it’s the perfect closing remarks for Arnotts’ spring-summer 2024 trend presentation, where a selection of menswear looks graced the runway alongside womenswear.

The show’s objective is to provide a first look to fashion press at the retailer’s offering for the season, and menswear is shaping up to be one where you’ll be hearing a lot more buzzwords like ‘soft utility’ and ‘workwear’, while a pared-back polish is key, alongside an uptick of technical outdoor and sportswear fabrications blended into everyday pieces – a hangover of post-pandemic fashion that looks likely to stick around.

To break the workwear trend down to brass tacks would be to start with the kingpin of workwear brands: Carhartt. The American apparel brand was founded in 1889 to provide heavy-duty pieces like coats, jackets, overalls, vests and coveralls, and its Carhartt Work in Progress, or WIP, offshoot delivers these workwear-inspired pieces for style purposes.

So it came as little surprise when a washed-out light blue Detroit overshirt (€199) paired with wide-leg slate trousers (€119), both by the Carhartt WIP, was a look that resonated with the room, because the timing, is and was, spot on. A similar look followed directly after by Amsterdam-based Pop Trading Company, a new brand to the retailer’s offering, which consisted of a crisp white utility jacket (€175) and navy, slouchy trousers (€150).

Carhartt is part of Daly’s portfolio of brands that she buys for the retailer, and the heritage label has been stocked in-store for the past six years, though its sales doubled in 2023 propelled by a strong demand for casual jackets, T-shirts and sweatshirts, according to the retailer. Casual trousers, like the kind we saw in the show, experienced a 70 per cent increase in sales in 2023 among brands like Strellson, Remus Uomo and Meyer.

As for the urban-sportswear blend, (which has of late been termed ‘gorpcore’), a Calvin Klein printed windbreaker (€200) was paired with muted green cargo trousers (€100). Elsewhere, Daily Paper – another new brand for the retailer – sent a statement monogram gilet and shorts set (€280) in bottle green down the runway.

It’s a trend Arnotts is investing in because it’s reflective of the wider shift in retail: technical outdoor clothing is in demand for 2024, and more lifestyle brands will likely embed technical elements into their collections, according to the The State of Fashion 2024 report by McKinsey & Company.

Rounding off the show was a selection of looks from Italian luxury brand Eleventy (so you can expect a higher price point here), which offered elevated, smart pieces like this light brown suede bomber jacket (€1,610), a crewneck oatmeal coloured knit (€325) and crisp white trousers (€275).

The brand has been referred to as a ‘more affordable Brunello Cucinelli’ because of its pared-back polish, and a similar look and feel came courtesy of Wax London, which offered up another soft colour palette across its off-white check overshirt (€180) and white cotton twill trousers (€150).

As for the sustenance of the season’s trends, it's worth noting that each is underpinned by a wearable, function-first appeal – less driven by micro-trends and more rooted in substance.

As Daly put it: “Menswear is a different business. For us, that means we tailor our offering to the customer – the varying types of male shoppers, from the business trip jet-setter to the young working professional and the everyday looks in between, it’s about appealing to every taste and budget without being at the behest of trends.”