Australian men take note, there’s a revolution happening and it’s targeting you. There’s no excuse for sartorial slackness now with innovative Melbourne designers like Leopold rallying the troops and fronting the movement for a new vision for men’s style.Shandor Gancs and Boyd Parry are the driving force behind Leopold, they’re united in their vision for a more adventurous and unapologetically stylish look for Australian men. They’ve both put in the hard yards gaining valuable experience working for some pretty high profile Australian and international fashion labels and as Shandor and Boyd explained it was really a logical step for them to branch out on their own.

It’s no secret that we’re big Leopold fans at Camarilla so we were pretty stoked when the duo agreed to take time out from their busy fashion week preparations to talk with us. I had the pleasure of meeting the designers at their studio in Prahran.

It was interesting to hear their take on Australian men’s style, the realities of launching a new label and the financial considerations of working in this difficult market. As fashion history demonstrates it’s not so easy to drag men from their comfort zone…

Your name ‘Leopold’ has a strong vibe to it, I’m curious about it’s origin, You guy’s are not from the small coastal town of same name near Geelong are you?

(Shandor laughs loudly), no, no, we wanted a name that was very masculine and one that would work well in international markets as well as Australia. Boyd’s grandma is called Leonora (she taught Boyd how to use a Janome) but I reminded him it was a menswear label so we used the ‘Leo’ and reworked it into something that won’t date and has a very strong masculine presence.

How does your partnership work?

Boyd does a lot of the production but we work on the range together. We’ll sit down at the start of the season and work out what want. We’ll sort out the backbone of the range then later we’ll decide on the colour palette. We then work separately on our own ideas, we find we can get more done that way, then we come together at the end to edit and make final decisions from there.

Do you use, or pay much attention to trend forecasting?

We do pay a bit of attention to it, but we’ve been involved in men’s wear long enough to be able to intuitively read the market. We do avoid trends like the whole hipster skinny jeans thing though; it’s not the market we’re in.

Is it difficult to pioneer new trends/looks in Australia?

We’ve noticed that people overseas pick up on trends a lot quicker. We get tons of emails from people overseas saying ‘where can we buy it, where can we buy it’? This is something we have to tackle next. The Internet and Google help people find us so we need to develop this area. But generally if you look at a European trend forecast Australia will adopt one or two of them, Australia will tend to pick up on the more street orientated.

So would you say Australian men have a very distinct style?

Yes, sport and sport’s personalities have a lot of influence but so does the climate and lifestyle. And I think this is reflected in the way Aussie guys dress.

Leopold push the boundaries of what’s considered ‘traditionally’ male by offering a vibrant colour palette, slim elegant fit and details such as embroidery. Your style is still very masculine yet challenging any rigid notions or conformity at the same time. Is this the secret to your success?

Maybe. We design clothes that are stylish but by no means stiff or formal, they’re sharp but not starchy. Our clothes can take you from the office to the bar, and they’re perfect for guys, say, working in creative fields or places where they don’t have to be so formal. They can express a bit of their own creativity and personal style.

There’s been a lot of talk in the press lately about a new phenomena in men’s style dubbed as the ‘New Dandy’ have you seen evidence of this? Is this a good thing for Leopold?

Yes, I think it is starting to happen definitely. And yes it is a good thing. We picked up on it quite a few seasons ago, and we actually ran with it. We thought we’d do our interpretation of it and the models actually ended up looking like storm troopers on the catwalk! That was for Mercedes fashion week. It looked great and worked really well, we had these projections on the runway of gilt frames and aristocrats and everyone came out looking very dark, but we spiced it up with cameo brooches and jewels, so yeah it was quite dandy! The whole phenomena of the metrosexual whether you like it or not has actually given men a lot more freedom as to what’s acceptable to wear. It’s definitely a good thing.

Part 2 coming soon…