Gentle reader,

The holiday season has officially begun, I guess.  Scott went to Brad Grey’s holiday party at Spago the other night and left me at home to plan out this year’s Christmas tree and watch Say Yes to the Dress: Bridesmaids.  The one thing that stood out about this episode, aside from the fact that I was not at Brad Grey’s holiday party, was tits.  I guess if you think about it, that’s two things standing out, but it’s a grammatical question that is more than I can deal with right now.

You see, I’ve been up to my neck for weeks in women’s clothes and now I’m watching a show where the main challenge is keeping multitudes of enormous boobs from spilling out of these ugly bridesmaids’ dresses.  That’s too much female shit for any guy who doesn’t do drag on a regular basis.  At least skinny, twinkie consultant Brandon isn’t dressing like an idiot these days.  Oh wait, he just showed up wearing a cheap napkin as a cravat.  Never mind.

With all this estrogen flowing, I thought it might finally be time to get back to us guys and what we should be looking for next season.  First of all, the bright jeans that we originally saw on Jon Kortajarena in that great Mavi Jeans campaign are going to be around next season too, which is cool because I got a bright yellow pair at Abercrombie and can’t wait to wear them some more.  Nearly identical yellow jeans were shown at Gucci and they had some other brightly colored looks, as well, so that’s our first spring 2013 trend: bright colors.

Ferragamo really knocked it out of the park with color, too, but it was less about neon and more “ice cream” tones than last spring.  Every look was shown with amazing multi-colored sneakers that I would personally never wear, even though they were interestingly inspired by the paintings of David Hockney.  But that’s not as interesting as the time that I called David Hockney at home.  My friend, actor Ian McKellan, had been nominated for an Academy Award and I was told that he was staying at the home of a fellow Brit so I rang up the day before the Oscars to wish him good luck.  David Hockney answered the phone and told me that Ian was in an interview with Barbara Walters or someone.  I never get star struck, really, but chatting with this iconic artist was probably as close as I’ll get.

Anyway, this athletic feel is our second spring trend and it continues at Prada with a hugely sport-driven collection this season.  It almost looks like tracksuits and, after this fall’s Edwardian fabulousness, it’s a bit of a miss for me.  Emporio Armani was another sporty show with every hunky model in either shorts or revealing mesh and ending with a finale of Olympic athletes wearing even less.

Athletic wear and color are both pretty easy to pull off in L.A.—and you can take that from someone who spends most of his days off in his gym clothes—but this next trend may be a little less wearable even here.  You see, metallics made a big splash on the Burberry Prorsum and Versace spring 2013 runways, but I can’t really endorse guys running around in brightly colored metallic trench coats.  As much as I love fashion, “bright and shiny” is not really my thing, especially if it leaves you looking like a discarded foil candy wrapper.

Finally, the crisply tailored navy suiting at Dior Homme and Louis Vuitton highlighted a nautical trend that would elevate most any guy’s wardrobe.  The secret here is in the super-clean lines and the brass buttons are pretty great, too.  You can always switch those buttons out next year.

Check out my top picks for these trends in the slide show below!

Much love,

xxJames

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