New York Fashion Week spring - summer 2013: Tim Coppens

The collection: Tim Coppens “Gentlemen of the Sky” spring-summer 2013 collection. Coppens won the 2012 Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation award in the men’s design category

The inspiration: Post-World War II fighter pilots -- and the early icons of Detroit’s techno music scene.

The look: Multiple variations of the bomber jacket silhouette and other pieces of the U.S. Air Force uniform circa 1950, paired with quilted shorts, narrow-legged trousers, band-collared shirts and T-shirts with ‘90s-era record label logos in a color palette grounded in shades of blue and rust with pops of green.

The scene: A subdued crowd of fashion editors and retail buyers girding themselves for the long slog of New York Fashion Week lying ahead barely made a sound throughout, broken only by the wave of laughter that followed the shift of the soundtrack mash-up into the opening thrums of Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” (the song made famous, of course, by the 1986 movie “Top Gun”).

The verdict: Sharp-looking, military-inspired and full of technical details, the combination of two disparate inspirations from the past created a distinctly crisp and futuristic look. The only fishhook in the eye was in the footwear -– the kind of chunky leather mandals that begged for a dishonorable discharge from the whole affair.

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