ASOS BLACK A/W'11

DEAN MAYO DAVIES gets the D/L on the new A/W'11 collection

John Mooney, Head of Menswear Design at ASOS, is talking enthusiastically about the new ASOS Black range from the brand’s London studio. ‘It's a premium collection with new shapes, new silhouettes; the newest of everything – fabrics, prints,’ he chirps passionately in his scouse brogue.

Mooney heads a team who work on the collection in the way any top-tier fashion house would; closely and collaboratively. With plenty of chat the designers create jewellery, shoes and clothes to make a unified statement each season – within the parameters of a certain style.

‘We're about pushing forward and being as up to the minute as possible,’ he explains. ‘But the idea is that it will still correlate with other ASOS Black seasons. If you bought S/S’11, it will work with A/W’11 because we have a certain handwriting that we keep re-evaluating and expanding.’

A quick eye-over the latest moodboards notices everything from dark storm clouds, to rock and metallic, minimalist art.

‘This season we’ve played with placement print and repeat print,’ Mooney reveals. ‘The fabrics include denim and silk twill and marl yarns. Tailoring fabrics are washed and the mood is chunky, voluminous, heavyweight versus sheer and light.’

‘For denim, we went down to a print studio and used open silkscreens to make a white pigment print – basically a heavy white print, baked hard so that it cracks and changes as you wear it. My favourite pieces? I like the individuality of the screen-printed T-shirt. They’re a longer-line shape with raw edge. Each one is different – they’re all done by hand, which is amazing. You’ll get something unique. There’s a nod to this sense of young guys doing it themselves, a DIY streak. It’s the nature of what the label is about – we're doing something a bit more reactive, refreshing.’

But you won’t be surprised that ASOS Black is, erm, largely, black. For all the experimentation, it’s best to keep some things simple as the lookbook below demonstrates.