Photographer Jerry Buttles went backstage at Ervell’s New York Fashion Week show
Born to Swedish parents, raised in California and currently living and working in New York City… US menswear designer Patrik Ervell certainly has the best of both worlds. The journey from a safe nanny state via sun kissed beaches to a gritty and urban metropolitan is the perfect source of inspiration. The result, for anyone who’s followed Ervell’s career, is a knife sharp design vision, taking in two parts uniform influences, one part workwear and one part formal tailoring.
Combine those and not only do you get a wardrobe that people will actually be able to wear, but one with enough direction to keep us on our toes each season. Consequently, as one of New York’s few independent men’s designers on this level, Ervell has become the unofficial menswear highlight in New York.
Photography Jerry Buttles
His look would also work on a British or Parisian catwalk, but somehow Ervell feels most at ease in New York. It’s something to do with the city’s equally sleek and wonderfully messy attributes that makes Ervell fit in. His way of casually mixing shiny tailoring – most notably a tuxedo jacket and a emerald herringbone coat with tux lapels – with a floral and leaf camouflage pattern on bomber jackets, coats and trousers for AW13 shows off his natural knack for fusing urban, suburban and rural aesthetics.
For his MILK Studio finale, Ervell took it one step further when layering fleece over suit jackets and showing an ultra luxe oversized emerald poncho… it was the perfect end to a collection of tough inner-city mentality, functional woodland gear and smart office attire.
