Bespoken’s Natural Charm

The best thing about fashion week, like Christmas, sex, and vacations (or any combination thereof) is the surprises, and I could not have been more pleasantly surprised to stumble upon Bespoken’s Spring/Summer 2011 collection, creatively presented in the yard next to the Soho Grand.

Sam Fayed has designed a collection for “a chap on the road,” and this is a chap you’ll want as a traveling companion.

This chap is probably the son of a land-rich, cash-poor lord, a naughty, well-reared gentleman, getting out of London for a spell before he takes a job at a bank, and real life begins. Whether he’s sitting next to you in coach, ordering champagne for the both of you, or leading you by the hand into the oldest church in Tuscany; he’s a young man with a plan, and you’re just happy to ride along on his traditional British coat tails.

Speaking of coats, there are some great ones here, like Fayed’s contrast trim blazer and his smoking jacket, both reeking of elegance, and neither looking out of place in your cottage garden or a downtown discotheque. And I love it that they included pajamas (maybe a few too many details, but that’s a minor cavil).

Fayed hasn’t reinvented the wheel here, but using some of the finest wools, fabrics, and milliners that the UK has to offer, he’s playing with tradition in all the right ways. I was bowled over by the collection’s cheeky elegance, and modern take on Nicholas Nickleby, the haughty, scrappy, well-educated “son of a country gentleman.”

Bespoken has, in other words, charmed my pants off.