There is nothing languid, routine, or sweet about the Fall-Winter 2011/12 Menswear Collection presented by Lars Stoten. The mood is electricity—a bold reflection of British working class youth, and a visual homage to Lars Stoten’s early 80s ‘bother boy’ roots.

Mjölk’s exquisite structural leitmotif, and the emphasis on tailoring it typically entails, led Lars to explore ways to add a bare-boned stillness to the AW11 collection. Hence, an emphasis on the juxtaposition of engineered structure with the innately casual. Each look emanates the necessity of function, cultural appropriation, and ritual of dress. (To wit, the worn, organic drapery of a beaten denim jacket paired with the hot pink polished vinyl of a constructed demi-mac). This softening and distressing of certain fabrics brings a tough beauty to the range, while still affording the comfort and reassuring sensibility embodied by silk-and-lambswool hand-knitted cardigans, and American melton wool loom-woven suiting.

As usual, the visual idea is to break with style trends and take viewers by surprise, maintaining Mjölk’s permanent state of revolution. The resulting combination of these proportions, cuts, and textures exudes the overall subtlety of an anti-bourgeois aesthetic. This carefully crafted display of subversive elegance embodies a natural point of confluence in this uniquely innovative collection.