Belstaff

BELSTAFF SPRING/SUMMER 2020 COLLECTION TRAVELOGUE

At a presentation entitled “Travelogue” (British English for “travelog”) Sean Lehnhardt-Moore’s sophomore outing for Belstaff was, without question, full of fly-looking outerwear. His revival of a 1950s-through-to-1990s Belstaff produced a fishing vest—chest-thumpingly named the Castmaster, in sidewalk-appropriate orange and riverbank-appropriate khaki—that had this punter hooked (I’ve since snagged a vintage example on eBay). It also included arms to make a very fine jacket.

A corduroy collared Trialmaster in weathered patches of variously shaded khaki and olive cotton looked manly on its mannequin. A jacket with roughened metal fastenings in a nylon British Army woodland camo looked very fine as well, as did the beautifully treated green T-shirt worn layered under a shirt. Another four-pocket coat came in a thick olive canvas duck-piped in washed bridle leather. Freshly cooked and served on that mannequin, it looked like it has already enjoyed several eventful tours of duty—an impression also given by Lehnhardt-Moore’s super-attractive leather and waxed-cotton courier and overnight bags, respectively. Yet another revived jacket, named the XL 500, originally built for Belstaff’s motorsport of trial racing, was the inspiration for some pieces, which were delivered in waxed nylon. This offered the lightness and versatility of the synthetic fabric with the potential to, in time, acquire a pleasing patina offered by the waxing process.

There was womenswear, too. This included a sort of garagiste jumpsuit, skirts, and shirts with hand-drawn doodles illustrating the ephemera seen and acquired on the customer’s idealized journey, and lots of versions of the men’s jackets. By this point, however, I was basically just fantasy personal shopping—and not for womenswear. The presentation format of items on mannequins, plus the lack of much of a thesis beyond very finely observed heritage-led product for a broad demographic, meant this felt more like a super-privileged browse in which the logic behind a new logo and T-shirt graphic was laid out by the brain behind it rather than a sales assistant. (It was inspired, by the way, by a late ’40s Adventurer’s Edition catalog, but also referred to Belstaff’s 1924 birth year.) Lehnhardt-Moore said: “It is not just the fit or the function, but also the finish of things that is really important to me.”