FEBEN's SS23 Menswear Proved Tailoring Can Be Flirty
Waists were cinched, collars were darted, legs were flared and slit, and tank tops made for fabulous summer dresses.
As one of the UK’s most exciting rising female designers, FEBEN crafts sleek and sexy womenswear for her fellow community. Working to shine a light on Black femme bodies, Feben Vemmenby now returns to the London Fashion Week stomping ground to present her third collection under the NEWGEN cohort. For FW22, the designer set on displaying a range infused with love and self-development motifs. The presentation showcased FEBEN in a delicate light while maintaining a refined design language. Now, the designer presents her Spring/Summer 2023 collection, welcoming a fresh slew of menswear.
For FEBEN, SS23 was about looking inside herself and within her own catalog of work. In turn, it was FEBEN redefined and refined, littered with references to introspection influenced from previous seasons. Simultaneously, Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye — a novella described as being centered around the “increasingly bizarre sexual perversions of a pair of teenage lovers, including an early depiction of omorashi fetishism in Western literature” — was subtly worked into the collection (see look 24’s blue and white striped shirt) alongside tarot card iconography like the devil, here quite literally appearing as a print across the front a mesh mini dress.
However, it was menswear that really got the industry talking. While we’ve seen pieces from the designer before specifically designed for men, previously focusing on signatures like textured high-waisted trousers that were a derivative of FEBEN’s womenswear, this season provided a more in-depth understanding of male attire.
As such, asymmetrical zip-up jackets provided formality to slick printed tops, flared trousers with frontal slits blurred the gender boundary, as did a black dress that was, at first glance, more of an elongated sweater vest complete with soft peaks puckering the fabric all over. Lapels were heavily darted and collars daggered down with impact, while denim was given a textural makeover as it warped around itself over the leg, looking like something between distressing and foliage.
FEBEN’s SS23 collection can be seen in the gallery above. Stay tuned to Hypebeast for more London Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2023 content as the week goes on, and find more content on @HypebeastUK’s Instagram account.
In case you missed it, check out the LFW-winning collection from JW Anderson.
