After being the go-to for catwalk fashion such as Givenchy, Balenciaga, and Gucci while also the go-to for luxury brands like Berlutti, Brunello Cucinelli, and Tom Ford for the past seven years, online menswear brand Mr Porter is finally adding a new label to their endless roster of more than 400 brands. Its very own collection called “Mr P.”.
“We want men to take the clothes and make it their own thing instead of copying what the catwalk says,” says Olie Arnold, Mr Porter style director. “That’s what most men do anyway.”
Their new collection is a mix of always available items called Essentials. They are those hard to find classics men are constantly going back to, as well as a good mix of forward fashion with their drop of five limited-edition capsules that will be on target with current trends. They will also be looking to men’s trendsetters of the past and present for inspiration that will be developed by their design team.
“We’re all product nerds here and really love menswear,” says Olie Arnold in a phone call from home base in London to Hollywood Reporter. “We all geek out when something new comes in. So we started to see some gaps and then you start to add up those gaps.”
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Every man has got to have denim in their wardrobe and luckily Mr P. includes selvage jeans and an up to date trucker jacket priced at $290 that is made at a specialty Japanese factory. “We couldn’t launch a brand without great denim. A bunch of us sat in a room and we brought in our jackets and said what we liked and didn’t like about each one,” Arnold says. “We thought about the fit of the jacket so, along with things that are quite classic, we brought it up to date. It fits slightly shorter, but it’s just a nuance.”
The team also paid special attention to creating the best white cotton shirt. Their version cost $200 and has a slim fit to it, but it’s not as skinny as other designers have their own. “It fits in all the right places. I can’t tell you how many protos we went through. The tail is long enough so that when you tuck it in, if you raise your arms it doesn’t come out in the back,” he says. “And it has a ‘bluff’ collar, without topstitching so it’s really clean. A lot of people say a white shirt is a white shirt, but I disagree.”
Mr Porter admires the male style icons, as you can tell by just looking at their site and seeing the number of photographs they have. They tend to pattern their mini-collections after notable men, they were inspired by London’s 60’s era that had the likes of artist such as Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.
“We really like storytelling and evoking a reaction and emotion in our customer is important,” says Arnold. “We want to talk about what makes them iconic and these young men were wearing the same kinds of clothes as their fathers but starting to mix everything up.”
The Mr P. collection has prices ranging from $75 to $1,120 with their most expensive piece being a black aviator jacket. The line quality is around the same as any other elite fashion label under Mr Porter. “We wanted to make sure the quality is more attainable and we’ve really stretched to get best fabrics and best manufacturers,” Arnold says about the line which will primarily be made in Italy, with certain items coming from Portugal and of course their denim from Japan.
Mr P will be launched next week with a campaign shot “real men” by photographer Sefan Heinrichs in cities like London, Paris, Copenhagen, and Berlin.
