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Paris fashion week - Bauhaus meets basketball at Givenchy

Givenchy's autumn/winter 2014 show in Paris. Photograph: Michel Dufour/WireImage

Bauhaus meets basketball is the key phrase of next season's menswear. Givenchy's autumn/winter collection, created by designer Riccardo Tisci and shown on Friday in Paris, hit a slam dunk for this unlikely hybrid.

The fashion crowd at the show were greeted by a mocked-up basketball court, with neon pink strips in place of the court markings and the metal cage familiar on all city streets. Notables looking on included hip-hop stars Angel Haze and Tisci's close friend Kanye West.

A scoreboard was placed above the entrance where models walked out. The clothes played with the patterns familiar to NBA fanatics – the curves of the basketball, the net of the basket and tactic sketches used by coaches.

The most successful pieces were the ones where the Italian-born, London-trained 39-year-old added the signatures that have earned him a significant following. Sweatshirts came in block colours, puffa jackets had zips resembling the patterns on a basketball and models – including Tisci favourite MariaCarla Boscano in menswear – wore baseball caps and nets on their faces. Their feet were encased in Nike high tops – timely as Tisci announced he is collaborating with the sportswear brand.

Fur, which has been seen at most shows this week, is becoming an everyday option for high fashion, and on Friday was seen in a basketball vest reimagined in cashmere and mink.

A new Givenchy crowd, with West front row centre, boasts the hip-hop stars who now have so much influence over what men wear, and is the envy of most brands. And clothes that manage to elevate style classics like that basketball vest to four-figure items is a clever but digestible idea.

"He's created brand recognition in what he does each season," says Nick Cavell, fashion editor at GQ.com. "It's become one of the spectacle brands."

Ben Reardon, editor-in-chief at Man About Town, believes its success is a sign that "men love and wear full-on fashion. Stores can't keep the stock on the rails, it sells so fast." Damien at Matchesfashion.com confirms this. Givenchy continued to be one of the best selling labels for men, he said, adding "the basketball court graphic sweats are likely to be a major hit next season".

Backstage after the show, Tisci was embraced by a who's who of the front row including Carine Roitfeld, former editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris, who had flown in from New York for his show, and West in a knee-length rabbit fur coat.

The designer said the collection was inspired by an adolescent career playing basketball and an obsession with Bauhaus. "Basketball is a free game – you'll find a yard on the street everywhere from Italy to America," he said. "That was the start of it – then I added the specifications of Bauhaus with the blocking and the nets on the face. Basketball has been done many times, so it made it a little bit unusual." And, one might add, a lot Givenchy.

Tisci has been at the brand since 2005 and designing menswear since spring/summer 2009. He has made the brand his own. Founded in 1952 by Hubert de Givenchy, the house became famous in the 1960s for very elegant dressing. After a flash of creativity in the late nineties and early noughties – with John Galliano, Alexander McQueen and Julien McDonald designing – the brand was dormant when Tisci took over. It's now back on the radar of just the right people and prospering. Its success no doubt contributed to an 8% increase in revenue for parent company LVMH in the first nine months of 2013.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2014/jan/17/givenchy-autumn-winter-collection-bauhaus-basketball