Aleksandr Manamis - Controlled Effortlessness
Copenhagen-based gender neutral brand Aleksandr Manamis 2017 SS collection has arrived at Kokko. Not too much information is revealed regarding the designer. It started in 2007 and the collections are designed out of Copenhagen but production sites vary among Italy, Portugal or India per collection. Natural fibres, minimal prints, black, grey, ivory white and vintage treatments are obvious themes dominating Alexsandr Manamis. Sometimes avant-garde and sometimes day-to-day, Romanticism prevails the brand’s three design pillars - effortless day-to-day, deconstructed slouchy tailoring and avant garde.
Remember the whole Margaret Howell/ Kinfolk aesthetics - barefoot, minimalistic attires with a hint of rustic chic and handcrafted Japanese stationery. 2017 SS Aleksandr Manamis feels a bit like the new wave of Kinfolk style. It’s rustic with raw edges and wrinkles, and the fits are gender neutral so everything is relaxed. It is designed out of Copenhagen after all.
Another piece of rare information available behind the designer of Aleksandr Manamis is Percy Bysshe Shelley's inspirations, an 19th century English Romantic poet with radical political views and maybe it's the poems triggering theatrical elements like asymmetrical hemlines or unevenly pinched crown on straw hat into this rather quiet, almost zen, collection.
There are washed ramie shirts with flared waistline, overlong black linen shirts with asymmetrically ‘torn’ hem line, loose fit trousers with rolled cuffs and suspenders, and even an all-black linen coat for comfort goths this spring. Aleksandr Manamis’s avant garde natural fibers soaked in Romanticism for this Spring is now available at Kokko.
