Will Suits Make A Return To The Office?
Autumn runways saw the welcome return of tailoring – but where to from here after a lengthy and casual stint working from home?
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One year ago, the men’s retail community was all abuzz at the prospect of tailored clothing rebounding as streetwear started to wane.
Fast-forward to 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic stopped business in its tracks and left everyone working from home in tracksuit pants.
So when the situation finally normalises and men are able to return to their offices — whenever that may be — will the once-expected popularity of tailored clothing become a reality, or a lost opportunity?
Designers and retailers remain upbeat, expecting pent-up demand to spur sales of suits and sport coats as guys happily ditch their work-from-home attire and get dressed up when they can finally get back to the office.
“Guys inherently like to get dressed up,” said designer Joseph Abboud.
Dressing well helps men feel powerful, and considering how out of control the world has felt in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, a suit is an easy, but highly visible, statement.
But it won’t be his grandfather’s suit. Instead, the power suit of 2020 will be more comfortable with technical attributes such as stretch, antimicrobial properties, antiwrinkle and other performance features. The contemporary silhouette is often oversize, double-breasted and boxy with retro Nineties references, while some guys may pair it with everything from upscale T-shirts to sneakers.
Designers Dish on Tailored’s Return
For Pierpaolo Piccioli, creative director of Valentino, today’s tailored clothing is much less formal than in the past.
“I believe that the sense of intimacy behind the art of tailoring is what matters,” he said. “I want to dismiss the idea of formalwear as a uniform by making it more sensitive and romantic. I think a man has to change his perspective and take away some formalities from the formal. Formalwear has evolved by eliminating the bossiness that has always characterised it.”
Alessandro Dell’Acqua, founder and creative director of No. 21, also sees a new reality for tailored clothing, particularly in light of the pandemic.
“I really think that after long days spent at home wearing super comfortable pieces, men will definitely be willing to return to wearing suits or more sartorial designs,” he said. But the suit is not traditional. Instead, he said, “I imagine a revisited formal suit influenced by feminine elements, as well as characterised by intentional mistakes. An example: the double-breasted blazer will be completely unlined and maybe paired with shorts or with slim-fit pants. In addition, coats will be deconstructed, striped shirts will be sleeveless and knitted tops will feature one-shoulder cuts. To sum up, I imagine a slim, elongated silhouette, not touched by streetwear and sportswear references.”
Sir Paul Smith said he is “already dreaming of the day I get back to work properly and I’m looking forward to getting dressed up in a suit, shirt, tie and proper shoes, in a way I haven’t done for years. So many people will have spent so much time trapped at home in their casual home clothes, I think we’ll see an interesting return to getting dressed up and feeling special. For me that’s definitely helped by the elegance of a good suit.”
For Smith, today’s suit “is definitely divided into two quite distinct categories. There is the suit as we’ve known it in recent years: it fits the body, it’s smart and elegant in a more traditional manner and it’s worn with a tie and leather shoes. Then there is the suit that everybody has been talking about this season: the more relaxed, softly constructed suit, sometimes in colour, with more volume and worn in a more alternative way whether with a T-shirt, trainers or otherwise. And so, the suit for me has an enormous relevance this winter but the choice is yours which one you select.”
Sander Lak, creative director of Sies Marjan, too, believes men will be itching to get dressed up again as soon as they can.
“We have actually been talking about this a lot, as many of my team members have joked about living in their sweats and I think we are all getting a bit sick of it. I think after we no longer have to social distance, everyone will be racing to the bars and restaurants and exploring the rest of their closets. I think that there is a way to still dress relaxed, and comfortably without having to live in your sweatsuit.”
Lak added: “In a way, part of the Sies Marjan uniform has been relaxed items such as our fluid cord pieces. You don’t have to sacrifice comfort to dress up, so I do think people will incorporate that idea into their day-to-day [lives] after this is over. I also think that we will embrace and appreciate those moments of getting dressed up for a dinner at our favourite restaurant or dressing up to go to a play or putting on our favourite suit to go to the office. The rest of our wardrobes are screaming, ‘Wear me!’”
Pierre Mahéo, founder and designer of the Paris-based Officine Générale brand, said he believes tailored clothing “has already taken over the momentum of streetwear. This was evident when some of the most iconic streetwear brands included suiting in their collections and on the runway during men’s fashion week last June.”
And even though he doesn’t believe everyone will immediately jump to wearing suits or jackets, he sees “a progressive curve.”
“When quarantine is over, I don’t believe we’ll be seeing sleepy zombies wearing sweats to work all the time. Going out and getting dressed is something we are all waiting for.”
But the tailoring will be different than in the past. “Tailored clothing was certainly a big trend on the runway. I think tailoring will be back, but not in the literal way. It will be in a much cooler, creative way. I think guys will play and mix up their tailored clothing — it’s the only way to make a suit cool again. I don’t think guys want to wear a suit in the Gordon Gekko way. It has to be dressed down, with a touch of nonchalance, getting rid of the serious part of it.”
Heron Preston, who has been a leader of the streetwear movement, said his most recent collection includes more tailoring. “I think that is because we’re experiencing the maturing of a generation of designers, creatives, and fans. We all grew up a bit and started to appreciate more than just T-shirts and denim, and the collection is a reflection of that real-life process. That process also presented an exciting opportunity to evolve my perspective by adding twists on conventional and traditional designs. It was a creative exercise to take what was meant for the office and envision it on the streets, to loosen up ‘formalwear’ and wipe it free of corporation through a filter of culture.”
Paul Smith Men’s Autumn 2020
Preston said he hopes that when the pandemic passes, “people come out of this with changed perspectives, and I think that fresh mind-set will be apparent in our approach to fashion. When we came out of the last recession, people went back to the basics and more practical clothing. I think when we come out of this time, people will be wanting to get behind brands that stand for something. I think tailoring will be important because we are hurting economically and people are looking for jobs, but I am hoping that we don’t all just replicate what we were doing before. I think we’ll be looking for creative ways to evolve the system, be it changing our buying habits, reprioritising elements of our lives or simply finding styles that deconstruct traditional.”
He believes that people are “realizing all the trivial things that we took for granted and we will hopefully come out of the other side with a new vantage point, a reset perspective toward the world. I think this can also be applied to fashion in that we will reset all this noise that we have been creating. This has been an equalizing experience, and going back to basics will make it easier for people to relate to one another once this is over.”
Willy Chavarria also believes the impact of COVID-19 will be long-lasting. “Going out in public is more precious to us. It will be from now on,” he said. “We will want to look better and feel better than we have throughout the duration of the crisis. For this reason, we will embrace tailoring, but it will be worn differently. We will have a more sensitive and relaxed approach in the way we present ourselves.”
Chavarria said that after experiencing loss, everyone will have “a new sense of values which I think will guide us away from opulence and more toward a gentler way of being. The mixing of casual with tailored will be more ever-present. Even now I find myself getting dressed to look good even if just to get Clorox wipes and pasta.”
Chavarria’s Autumn’20 collection consists of almost all tailored styles, he said, and uses recycled materials. “It is a eulogy for the world as we once knew it.” The presentation and video that he hosted to show the collection actually turned out to be a “foreshadowing of what was later to come,” he said. “When I designed it, I was sad for the world. I felt that in many ways man was a lost cause. But now, I actually find inspiration in the way that man is getting a slap across the face and being forced to wake up. Fashion will reflect this feeling.”
Patrick Grant, designer and owner of Norton & Sons, E. Tautz and Community Clothing, said: “I imagine people will be longing for an opportunity to get dressed up a bit, with a bit of distance. It might be that ath-leisure reminds them of lockdown wear. Trying to predict what people will feel is too tough of a question, but I do think this is an opportunity for everybody to reflect on the way we live. And in fashion, things move in cycles. The pendulum swings in one way, and then all the pioneers, the Virgil Ablohs and the cool kids were all into one thing. But when everyone else piles in, they go the other way.
“If you are a cool guy, you don’t want to be wearing the stuff everyone else is wearing. I’m a person who’s into clothes, and I know that I just get bored. I got bored with slim, fitted suits, that’s why we went to looser and baggier suits. Tailoring has moved on a lot, it feels very different now. It’s back to this really nice ‘Miami Vice’ vibe, which I really like. It feels fresh. Ath-leisure doesn’t feel fresh to me, it feels like every single teenage boy on the streets of England wearing black Nike trainers, black sweatpants, black top. It’s kind of boring.”
But not everyone thinks the pandemic will immediately boost interest in tailored clothing.
According to Palm Angels founder and creative director Francesco Ragazzi, “People will have a bigger desire to take care of themselves at all levels. I think this will also impact the way people will dress, but I don’t think that the sartorial suiting will be the answer to this crisis. I hope that consumers will rediscover quality, will look for beautifully crafted products, giving more attention to fabrics and yarns, one of Italy’s true excellences. I think this might be the answer.”
He said he hopes that fashion in the future “will be less driven by trends, but that it will be more connected to reality. I don’t think that suiting really reflects the moment we are living or what we will experience in the future. And I think this ‘future’ will last for many months.”
Mike Amiri, founder and designer of the Amiri label, weighed in: “Evolution of all things is natural and necessary. The spirit of curation within streetwear will simply evolve into finer things. Easy tailoring mixed with new fabrications, relaxed proportions, and novel details feels like a natural progression.” He added that the “relaxed nature of sweatpants and comfort clothing” guys are becoming so fond of during the virus, “will now be an addition to the elevated street wardrobe. However, it would be paired with a beautiful coat or leather jacket — a perfect mix between both leisure and luxury.”
Daisuke Obana, founder and designer of N. Hoolywood, also believes the pandemic will drastically change the way people think about clothes. “Even tomorrow is unpredictable,” he said. And while he showed a lot of tailored clothing in his last collections, he’s just not sure how it will all shake out. “In the first place, easy wear will be inevitable. I guess people will be creative and wear what’s in front of them for a while. And the stylish person will play with accessories and styling, Or they will have no interest in fashion at all. I have no idea.”
For Abboud, when things finally return to some sense of normalcy, he believes consumers will seek “comfort and safety” in both their lives as well as their wardrobes. And he’s not expecting tailored clothing to be the immediate beneficiary of this trend.
“When we came out of financial crisis of 2009, the last thing to come back was men’s wear,” he said. Guys were quick to take care of their children and their wives as well as responsibilities such as mortgages. Their wardrobes had to wait. “Clothing tends to be the last thing out.”
And custom clothing, a saviour of a lot of men’s wear manufacturers pre-COVID-19, is expected to have a particularly tough time. “The custom business will take a halt,” Abboud predicted, saying the category will be viewed as “conspicuous consumption,” a major no-no with all the unemployment and angst sweeping the world.
That being said, Abboud does expect the softer side of the clothing market — unconstructed sport coats, sophisticated pants with technical attributes, and shirts with stretch and antimicrobial features — to be the first place men gravitate when they do start shopping again. “The softer side of tailored clothing will thrive more quickly,” Abboud said.
Brands See Bright Future For Suits
Some of the more-traditional tailored clothing brands also — not surprisingly — claim to be optimistic about what the future holds in terms of the sector, but they too have evolved to meet the demand of a modern customer.
Tom Kalenderian, strategic adviser to Ermenegildo Zegna in the U.S., said “there will definitely be a change when we get back to reality.” And part of that change is that men will embrace getting dressed up again once they can retire their work-from-home sweatpants.
For him, even though many offices have relaxed their business dress codes, guys will still wear suits. “Men are going back to suits by choice,” he said. “They like the way it makes them look and feel. It has a serious and successful connotation.”
But instead of the uniform of the past, men are breaking apart the suit and pairing it with more casual shirts or pants, especially younger men.
Even before the COVID-19 crisis hit, 2020 “was poised to be a great year for tailoring,” Kalenderian said, and Zegna is prepared with options that range from high-end couture to wash-and-go suits. Its City suit project is targeted to younger guys with a slimmer silhouette and fabric and colour options that speak to the needs of a modern wardrobe.
“City suits can be worn with or without a tie or mixed with sophisticated leisurewear underpinnings for a ‘smart casual’ attitude that feels right both for business and leisure moments,” Kalenderian said.
Zegna is also embracing the sustainability movement, with more natural and technical fabrics that are intended to be reused as well as reusable, he said. That includes this Autumn’s introduction of regenerated suits from Zegna’s Achill Farm that are made from wool remnants discarded during the production process that are remixed and rewoven.
Roberto Compagno, chief executive officer of Slowear, said the brand has been moving toward a more comfortable way of dressing for some time now through the use of technology and performance fabrics that “need no ironing, that stretch, that are antibacterial, that don’t crease. This moment accelerates that process, and you can be informally elegant in a new way, wearing a suit that is comfortable and less traditional. It’s inevitable — look at what happened to hats and ties, which were considered musts in the past.”
Stefano Canali, CEO of the family-owned Canali company, agreed. “The pandemic is accelerating a trend that was already evident, a search for comfort, which derives from the materials, the construction of the clothes. When this is over, there will surely be a desire to buy less, but better, there will be more sobriety and a desire to turn to brands that are known for their authenticity, history and credibility, with high value for money, quality and durability with the right stylistic approach. The power suit will be represented by suits that are not rigid, more stretch and that have a lighter construction. The jacket will be increasingly important, but it will be lighter, thin, deconstructed. It will have a cocoon effect, responding to a need for comfort blended with quality. It will all be smart casual as the differentiation between formal and informal is increasingly less sharp.”
Hermès Men’s Autumn 2020
Anda Rowland, owner of Savile Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard, has also seen a return to a more tailored aesthetic brewing for a few season. “What we have seen with some of our best dressed younger customers is a mixture of tailoring and streetwear. Customers are more adventurous with their cloth choices and may choose less formal materials such as heavy cottons, jerseys or corduroys and brighter colours rather than the classic worsted wool cloths. Flannels work well as they can be dressed slightly less formally.
“We believe that the general trend toward more structured men’s clothing and toward mixing streetwear/ath-leisure with tailoring will continue despite the current disastrous situation. Many of our customers wear their tailored clothing for social occasions and out of work as dress codes at the office are far more relaxed and they will continue to be when normal life resumes.”
Although Rowland expects men to be cautious in their spending when the crisis abates, she believes they will gravitate toward comfort, which she said is “very addictive, and we believe that the power suit will be more softly tailored than its Eighties ancestor — men are used to moving freely and are expecting their suit to work for them across a wide variety of occasions. Also, we expect materials to be harder-wearing given the technical improvements brought in by the woollen mills over the last few years.”
But on a more serious note, with so many millions now unemployed, when they are back out interviewing for jobs, they’ll need to look professional. “A great-fitting suit will undoubtedly help them stand out from the competition,” he said.
Retailers Expect Sales Bump
The retail community is hopeful that heightened demand for tailored clothing will help spur much-needed business for them as well. Face it, after months of their stores being closed and relying on whatever business they could get from their e-commerce sites, retailers — at least the ones that will survive the pandemic — will be desperately searching for any sector that can get consumers back into stores and generate revenues.
Sam Kershaw, buying director for Mr Porter, is bullish on tailored clothing for Autumn (our Spring).
“After several years of a streetwear-dominated runway, we saw such fantastic suiting in January,” he said. “From slim-cut silhouettes at Givenchy and Valentino, to classic Italian tailoring from Canali, it was clear that tailoring is back, and in a considered, varied way.
“At Mr Porter, we’ve gotten behind the classically relaxed styles from brands like Brunello Cucinelli and Loro Piana, as well as the Seventies-esque silhouettes from Tom Ford and Tod’s. Later in the year, we’ll also be launching our third ‘costume to collection’ collaboration for our own label Kingsman, which is inspired by the forthcoming film, ‘The King’s Man.’ What will be evident come Autumn is that we’ve made a commitment to tailoring, as well as the diversity on offer from our brands.”
That diversity will be evident through a number of different trends. “The power suit of 2020 is less about a specific style or block, and more about the wearability and swagger of the approach,” he believes. “Whether it’s sharp and structured or relaxed and unstructured, the new power suit is in the eye of the beholder.
“Look at The Row, whose modern approach to traditional tailoring has created a new standard in impeccable suiting; Ermenegildo Zegna, who is collaborating with streetwear brand Fear of God, and Ralph Lauren, whose double-breasted suits look like they were made for Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant. All three brands fall on different points of the suiting spectrum, and perfectly embody what’s exciting about today’s chop-and-change approach to wearing tailoring,” said Kershaw.
Federico Barassi, vice president of men’s wear buying for Ssense, said the company started seeing “an industry shift toward tailoring for a little over two seasons now. Styles that are emblematic of streetwear, like hoodies and T-shirts will always be relevant, but designers are moving the focus of their collections toward more tailored and timeless pieces. Ermenegildo Zegna and Jerry Lorenzo’s collaboration is an example of how tailored clothing can pull from streetwear codes in an unexpected way.”
He said that even during the stay-at-home orders, many men are “still maintaining an office wardrobe for meetings and video calls. That said, the tailoring focus will organically continue to grow season over season; I don’t think the current circumstances will impact future demand for tailored goods.”
Barassi said the Ssense customer has been “gravitating toward building their wardrobes with staples like a classic overcoat, and well-cut trousers for quite a few seasons. This Spring, they’ll continue to elevate through more tailored pieces such as double-breasted blazers and leather details. We saw a lot of tailoring on spring/summer ’20 runways and shows, like at Bottega Veneta, so that will definitely influence people’s buying behaviours as well.”
Bottega Veneta RTW Autumn 2020
So pairing a wide-leg trouser with a fitted jacket, for example, with detailing such as notch lapels on the jacket, layered over a hoodie or turtleneck, will define the power suit of 2020 for the Ssense customer, he believes.
According to Bosse Myhr, director of men’s and women’s wear at Selfridges, “The tailored approach that a lot of brands have been applying for their autumn/winter ‘20 show collections is going to have an impact on the way people style streetwear. I think the important thing to remember is that, yes, there was more tailoring in the shows, but it’s very far away from the uniformed suit, shirt and tie. I think the future of tailoring is in its relaxed attitude, be that in the styling or the cut. I do think there is a chance that casual Friday will be replaced by dress-up Fridays.”
Nelson Mui, merchandising director for fashion at Hong Kong’s Lane Crawford, believes, “Ath-leisure and streetwear will always have universal appeal — you can’t unlearn comfort — but designers and luxury brands have been exploring creative ways to do tailoring: part of an overall mood toward more polished dressing. We are particularly excited about the Fear of God x Zegna collaboration, the idea of melding a street sensibility to traditional tailored codes. This is a very fashion concept.”
Mui added that “Zoom parties notwithstanding, the pandemic certainly reduced a lot of occasions to wear tailored clothing. But in times of economic uncertainty, with a good number of people out of work or worried about losing jobs, there’s a security to dressing up. Most men feel more confident and authoritative when they are in a sharp-looking suit. There was a time when it seemed tailored clothing was obsolete: remember casual Fridays in the Nineties and the rise of corporate casual? But the rise of the slim fit suit gave a new generation of guys in the 2000s a boost of confidence and fashion/sex appeal. What favours this trend toward tailored again is that people are looking for more investment pieces and fewer micro-trends, hype, and steady stream of drops. It takes less effort and money to put on a suit that you can wear over two or three years.”
Chris Kyvetos, men’s wear buying director for MyTheresa, said that for the past 18 months, streetwear has been “getting tired” and the industry is “naturally gravitating back toward a more-classic luxury direction. As an industry, when we reach saturation, we crave freshness.”
He said when deciding to launch Mytheresa Men for spring/summer ’20, “we took the view of no streetwear, and it’s worked exceptionally well for us. Going forward we see a heavily tailored influence in post-streetwear luxury. However, we are not planning on selling suits instead of sweatshirts, so some of the runway [collections] and collaborations I’m seeing between the two worlds are a bit literal and won’t go very far.”
He believes that for Autumn, tailored clothing will need to be fresh and new, such as Bottega Veneta’s tailored nylon jackets or Kiko Kostadinov’s tailored outerwear. But if a brand has its roots in streetwear and is pivoting to tailoring to catch a trend, that’s an example of being “too literal and irrelevant,” he said.
During the streetwear years, he said, “men’s fashion lost context,” and when people resume their “normal” activities, “it stands to reason that they will crave something new. It could be a job, a holiday, a personal trainer, an apartment, a dog or a jacket.”
Of course, who knows what the male consumer — or any consumer — will want to buy coming out of the global crisis (beyond more toilet paper and disinfectant, that is)?
While brands and retailers are bullish about the suit for Spring, it must be remembered that their orders were placed in January, as the coronavirus was only just beginning to spread in China. Orders were based on those fundamentals and the idea that a male shopper who was already spending more than ever would continue to spend. Given that, they felt confident about moving away from baggy and roomy streetwear toward a more tailored look.
So men’s store floors and web sites come Spring will be heavily slanted toward suits and sport jackets, albeit 21st-century versions. All brands and retailers can hope is that in a world that will never be the same again, even post-COVID-19, men will still go back to feeling about fashion the way they did a mere four months ago.
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Relying on generative gaps, these landscapes result from Henson mining his archive of negatives and manipulating them to produce a finished print. Sometimes, they are composed by a principle of magnification, with Henson honing in on details, and sometimes, they are created through areas of black being expanded to make the scene more cinematic and foreboding. Like silence in a film or the pause in a pulse, the black suggests the things you can’t see.
Henson’s illustrious career has spanned four decades and was memorably marred by controversy over a series of nude adolescent photographs shown in 2008, which made him front-page news for weeks. This series of portraits made Henson the subject of a police investigation during which no offence was found.
In recent years, Henson has been a sharp critic of cancel culture, encouraging artists to contribute something that will have lasting value and add to the conversation, rather than tearing down the past.
His work deals with the liminal space between the mystical and the real, the seen and unseen, the boundary between youth and adulthood.
His famous Paris Opera Project, 1990-91, pictured above, is similarly intense as the current show, dwelling on the border between the painterly and the cinematic.
Bill Henson’s ‘The Liquid Night’ runs until 11 May 2024 at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 8 Soudan Ln, Paddington NSW; roslynoxley9.com.au
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Polar Opposites
A journey north to one of the harshest, remotest spots on Earth couldn’t be more luxurious.
A century ago, an expedition to the North Pole involved dog sleds and explorers in heavy, fur-lined clothes, windburned and famished after weeks of trudging across ice floes, finally planting their nations’ flags in the barren landscape. These days, if you’re a tourist, the only way to reach 90 degrees north latitude, the geographic North Pole, is aboard Le Commandant Charcot, a six-star hotel mated to a massive, 150-metre ice-breaking hull.
My wife, Cathy, and I are among the first group of tourists aboard Ponant’s new expedition icebreaker, the world’s only Polar Class 2–rated cruise ship (of seven levels of ice vessel, second only to research and military vessels in ability to manoeuvre in Arctic conditions). Our arrival on July 14 couldn’t be more different from explorer Robert Peary’s on April 6, 1909. On that date, he reported, he staked a small American flag—sewed by his wife—into the Pole, joined by four Inuits and his assistant, Matthew Henson, a Black explorer from Maine who was with Peary on his two previous Arctic expeditions. (Peary’s claim of being first to the Pole was quickly disputed by another American, Frederick Cook, who insisted he’d spent two days there a year earlier. Scholars now view both claims with skepticism.)
Our 300-plus party’s landing, on Bastille Day, features the captain of the French ship driving around in an all-terrain vehicle with massive wheels and an enormous tricolour flag on the back, guests dressed in stylish orange parkas celebrating on the ice, and La Marseillaise, France’s national anthem, blaring from loudspeakers. After an hour of taking selfies and building snow igloos in the icescape, with temperatures in the relatively balmy low 30s, we head back into our heated sanctuary for mulled wine and freshly baked croissants. Mission accomplished. Flags planted. Now, lunch.
As a kid, I was fascinated by stories of adventurers trying to reach the North Pole without any means of rescue. In the 19th century, most of their attempts ended in disaster—ships getting trapped in the ice, a hydrogen balloon crashing, even cannibalism. It wasn’t until Cook and Peary reportedly set foot there that the race to the North Pole was really on. Norwegian Roald Amundsen, the first to reach the South Pole, in 1911, is credited with being the first to document a trip over the North Pole, which he did in 1926 in the airship Norge. In 1977, the nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika became the first surface vessel to make it to the North Pole. Since then, only 18 other ships have completed the voyage.
Visiting the North Pole seemed about as likely for me as walking on the Moon. It wasn’t even on my bucket list. Then came Le Commandant Charcot, which was named after France’s most beloved polar explorer and reportedly cost about US$430 million (around $655 million) to build. The irony of visiting one of the planet’s most remote and inhospitable points while travelling in the lap of luxury doesn’t escape me or anyone else I speak with on the voyage. Danie Ferreira, from Cape Town, South Africa, describes it as “an ensemble of contradictions bordering on the absurd”. Ferreira, who is on board with his wife, Suzette, is a veteran of early-explorer-style high-Arctic journeys, months-long treks involving dog sleds and real toil and suffering. He booked this trip to obtain an official North Pole stamp for an upcoming two-volume collection of his photographs, Out in the Cold, documenting his polar adventures. “Reserving the cabin felt like a betrayal of my expeditionary philosophy,” he says with a laugh.
Then, like the rest of us, he embraces the contradictions. “This is like the first time I saw the raw artistry of Cirque du Soleil,” he explains. “Everything is beyond my wildest expectations, unrelatable to anything I’ve experienced.”
The 17-day itinerary launches from the Norwegian settlement of Longyearbyen, Svalbard, the northernmost town in the Arctic Circle, and heads 1,186 nautical miles to the North Pole, then back again. As a floating hotel, the vessel is exceptional: 123 balconied staterooms and suites, the most expensive among them duplexes with butler service (prices range from around $58,000 to $136,000 per person, double occupancy); a spa with a sauna, massage therapists, and aestheticians; a gym and heated indoor pool. The boat weighs more than 35,000 tons, enabling it to break ice floes like “a chocolate bar into little pieces, rather than slice through them”, according to Captain Patrick Marchesseau. Six-metre-wide stainless-steel propellers, he adds, were designed to “chew ice like a blender”.
Marchesseau, a tall, lanky, 40-ish mariner from Brittany, impeccable in his navy uniform but rocking royal-blue boat shoes, proves to be a charming host. Never short of a good quip, he’s one of three experienced ice captains who alternate at the helm of Charcot throughout the year. He began piloting Ponant ships through drifting ice floes in Antarctica in 2009, when he took the helm of Le Diamant, Ponant’s first expedition vessel. “An epic introduction,” Marchesseau calls those early voyages, but the isolated, icebound North Pole aboard a larger, more complicated vessel is potentially an even thornier challenge. “We’ll first sail east where the ice is less concentrated and then enter the pack at 81 degrees,” he tells a lecture hall filled with passengers on day one. “We don’t plan to stop until we get to the North Pole.”
Around us, the majority of the other 101 guests are older French couples; there are also a few extended families, some other Europeans, mostly German and Dutch, as well as 10 Americans. Among the supporting cast are six research scientists and 221 staff, including 18 naturalist guides from a variety of countries.
The first six days are more about the journey than the destination. Cathy and I settle into our comfortable stateroom, enjoy the ocean views from our balcony, make friends with other guests and naturalists, frequent the spa, and indulge in the contemporary French cuisine at Nuna, which is often jarred by ice passing under the hull, as well as at the more casual Sila (Inuit for “sky”). There are the usual cruise events: the officers’ gala, wine pairings, daily French pastries, Broadway-style shows, opera singers and concert pianists. Initially, I worry about “Groundhog Day” setting in, but once we hit patchy ice floes on day two, it’s clear that the polar party is on. The next day, we’re ensconced in the ice pack.
Veterans of Arctic journeys immediately feel at home. Ferreira, often found on the observation deck 15 metres above the ice with his long-lensed cameras, is in his element snapping different patterns and colours of the frozen landscape. “It feels like combining low-level flying with an out-of-body experience,” he says. “Whenever the hull shudders against the ice, I have a reality check.”
“I came back because I love this ice,” adds American Gin Millsap, who with her husband, Jim, visited the North Pole in 2015 aboard the Russian nuclear icebreaker Fifty Years of Victory, which for obvious reasons is no longer a viable option for Americans and many Europeans. “I love the peace, beauty and calmness.”
It is easy to bliss out on the endless barren vistas, constantly morphing into new shapes, contours and shades of white as the weather moves from bright sunshine to howling snowstorms—sometimes within the course of a few hours. I spend a lot of time on the cold, windswept bow, looking at the snow patterns, ridges and rivers flowing within the pale landscape as the boat crunches through the ice. It feels like being in a black-and-white movie, with no colours except the turquoise bottoms of ice blocks overturned by the boat. Beautiful, lonely, mesmerising.
Rather than a solid landmass, the Arctic ice pack is actually millions of square kilometres of ice floes, slowly pushed around by wind and currents. The size varies according to season: this past winter, the ice was at its fifth-lowest level on record, encompassing 14.6 million square kilometres, while during our cruise it was 4.7 million square kilometres, the 10th-lowest summer number on record. There are myriad ice types—young ice, pancake ice, ice cake, brash ice, fast ice—but the two that our ice pilot, Geir-Martin Leinebø, cares about are first-year ice and old ice. The thinness of the former provides the ideal route to the Pole, while the denseness of the aged variety can result in three-to-eight-metre-high ridges that are potentially impassable. Leinebø is no novice: in his day job, he’s the captain of Norway’s naval icebreaker, KV Svalbard, the first Norwegian vessel to reach the North Pole, in 2019.
It’s not a matter of just pointing the boat due north and firing up the engine. Leinebø zigzags through the floes. A morning satellite feed and special software aid in determining the best route; the ship’s helicopter sometimes scouts 65 or so kilometres ahead, and there’s a sonar called the Sea Ice Monitoring System (SIMS). But mostly Leinebø uses his eyes. “You look for the weakest parts of the ice—you avoid the ridges because that means thickness and instead look for water,” he says. “If the ‘water sky’ in the distance is dark, it’s reflecting water like a mirror, so you head in that direction.”
Everyone on the bridge is surprised by the lack of multi-year ice, but with more than a hint of disquietude. Though we don’t have to ram our way through frozen ridges, the advance of climate change couldn’t be more apparent. Environmentalists call the Arctic ice sheet the canary in the coal mine of the planet’s climate change for good reason: it is happening here first. “It’s not right,” mutters Leinebø. “There’s just too much open water for July. Really scary.”
The Arctic ice sheet has shrunk to about half its 1985 size, and as both mariners and scientists on board note, the quality of the ice is deteriorating. “It’s happening faster than our models predicted,” says Marisol Maddox, senior arctic analyst at the Polar Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “We’re seeing major events like Greenland’s ice sheet melting and sliding into the ocean—that wasn’t forecasted until 2070.” The consensus had been that the Arctic would be ice-free by 2050, but many scientists now expect that day to come in the 2030s.
That deterioration, it turns out, is why the three teams of scientists are on the voyage—two studying the ice and the other assessing climate change’s impact on plankton. As part of its commitment to sustainability, Ponant has designed two research labs—one wet and one dry—on a lower deck. “We took the advice of many scientists for equipping these labs,” says Hugues Decamus, Charcot’s chief engineer, clearly proud of the nearly US$12 million facilities.
The combined size of the labs, along with a sonar room, a dedicated server for the scientists, and a meteorological station on the vessel’s top deck, totals 130 square metres—space that could have been used for revenue generation. Ponant also has two staterooms reserved for scientists on each voyage and provides grants for travel expenses. The line doesn’t cherrypick researchers but instead asks the independent Arctic Research Icebreaker Consortium (ARICE) to choose participants based on submissions.
The idea, says the vessel’s science officer on this voyage, Daphné Buiron, is to make the process transparent and minimise the appearance of greenwashing. “Yes, this alliance may deliver a positive public image for the company, but this ship shows we do real science on board,” she says. The labs will improve over time, adds Decamus, as the ship amasses more sophisticated equipment.
Research scientists and tourist vessels don’t typically mix. The former, wary of becoming mascots for the cruise lines’ sustainability marketing efforts, and cognisant of the less-than-pristine footprint of many vessels, tend to be wary. The cruise lines, for their part, see scientists as potentially high maintenance when paying customers should be the priority. But there seemed to be a meeting of the minds, or at least a détente, on Le Commandant Charcot.
“We discuss this a lot and are aware of the downsides, but also the positives,” says Franz von Bock und Polach, head of the institute for ship structural design and analysis at Hamburg University of Technology, specialising in the physics of sea ice. Not only does Charcot grant free access to these remote areas, but the ship will also collect data on the same route multiple times a year with equipment his team leaves on board, offering what scientists prize most: repeatability. “One transit doesn’t have much value,” he says. “But when you measure different seasons, regions and years, you build up a more complex picture.” So, more than just a research paper: forecasts of ice conditions for long-term planning by governments as the Arctic transforms.
Nils Haëntjens, from the University of Maine, is analysing five-millilitre drops of water on a high-tech McLane IFCB microscope. “The instrument captures more than 250,000 images of phytoplankton along the latitudinal transect,” he says. Charcot has doors in the wet lab that allow the scientists to take water samples, and in the bow, inlets take in water without contaminating it. Two freezers can preserve samples for further research back in university labs.
Even though the boat won’t stop, the captain and chief engineer clearly want to make the science missions work. Marchesseau dispatches the helicopter with the researchers and their gear 100 kilometres ahead, where they take core samples and measurements. I spot them in their red snowsuits, pulling sleds on an ice floe, as the boat passes. Startled to see living-colour humans on the ice after days of monochrome, I feel a pang of jealousy as I head for a caviar tasting.
The only other humans we encounter on the journey north are aboard Fifty Years of Victory, the Russian icebreaker. The 160-metre orange- and-black leviathan reached the North Pole a day earlier—its 59th visit—and is on its way back to Murmansk. It’s a classic East meets West moment: the icebreaker, launched just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, meeting the new standard of polar luxury.
The evening before Bastille Day, Le Commandant Charcot arrives at the North Pole. Because of the pinpoint precision of the GPS, Marchesseau has to navigate back and forth for about 20 minutes—with a bridge full of passengers hushing each other so as not to distract him—until he finds 90 degrees north. That final chaotic approach to the top of the world in the grey, windswept landscape looks like a kid’s Etch A Sketch on the chartplotter, but it is met with rousing cheers. The next morning, with good visibility and light winds, we spill out onto the ice for the celebration, followed by a polar plunge.
As guests pose in front of flags and mile markers for major cities, the naturalist guides, armed with rifles, establish a wide perimeter to guard against polar bears. The fearless creatures are highly intelligent, with razor-sharp teeth, hooked claws and the ability to sprint at 40 km/h. Males average about three metres tall and weigh around 700 kilos. They are loners that will kill anything—including other bears and even their own cubs. Cathy and I walk around the far edges of the perimeter to enjoy some solitude. Looking out over the white landscape, I know this is a milestone. But it feels odd that getting here didn’t involve any sweat or even a modicum of discomfort.
The rest of the week is an entirely different trip. On the return south, we see a huge male polar bear ambling on the ice, looking over his shoulder at us. It is our first sighting of the Arctic’s apex predator, and everyone crowds the observation lounge with long-lensed cameras. The next day, we see another male, this one smaller, running away from the ship. “They have many personalities,” says Steiner Aksnes, head of the expedition team, who has led scientists and film crews in the Arctic for 25 years. We see a dozen on the return to Svalbard, where 3,000 are scattered across the archipelago, outnumbering human residents.
The last five days we make six stops on different islands, travelling by Zodiac from Charcot to various beaches. On Lomfjorden, as we look on a hundred yards from shore, a mother polar bear protects her two cubs while a young male hovers in the background. On a Zodiac ride off Alkefjellet, the air is alive with birds, including tens of thousands of Brünnich’s guillemots as well as glaucous gulls and kittiwakes, which nest in that island’s cliffs, while a young male polar bear munches on a ring seal, chin glistening red.
On this part of the trip, the expedition team, mostly 30-something, free-spirited scientists whose areas of expertise range from botany to alpine trekking to whales, lead hikes across different landscapes. The jam-packed schedule sometimes involves three activities per day and includes following the reindeer on Palanderbukta, seeing a colony of 200 walruses on Kapp Lee, hiking the black tundra of Burgerbukta (boasting 3.8-cm-tall willows—said to be the smallest trees in the world and the largest on Svalbard—plus mosquitoes!), watching multiple species of whales breaching offshore, and kayaking the ice floes of Ekmanfjorden. Svalbard is a protected wilderness area, and the cruise lines tailor their schedules so vessels don’t overlap, giving visitors the impression they are setting foot on virgin land.
Chances to experience that sense of discovery and wonder, even slightly stage-managed ones, are dwindling along with the ice sheet and endangered wildlife. If a stunning trip to a frozen North Pole is on your bucket list, the time to go is now.
PARADIGM SHIP
For those studying polar ice, a berth aboard Le Commandant Charcot is like a winning lottery ticket. “This cruise ship is one of the few resources scientists can use, because nothing else can get there,” says G. Mark Miller, CEO of research-vessel builder Greenwater Marine Sciences Offshore (GMSO) and a former ship captain for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “Then factor in 80 percent of scientists who want to go to sea, can’t, because of the shortage of research vessels.”
Both Ponant and Viking have designed research labs aboard new expedition vessels as part of their sustainability initiatives. “Remote areas like Antarctica need more data—the typical research is just single data points,” says Damon Stanwell-Smith, Ph.D., head of science and sustainability at Viking. “Every scientist says more information is needed.” The twin sisterships Viking Octantis and Viking Polaris, which travel to Antarctica, Patagonia, the Great Lakes and Canada, have identical 35-square-metre labs, separated into wet and dry areas and fitted out with research equipment. In hangars below are military-grade rigid-hulled inflatables and two six-person yellow submersibles (the pair on Octantis are named John and Paul, while Polaris’s are George and Ringo). Unlike Ponant, Viking doesn’t have an independent association choose scientists for each voyage. Instead, it partners with the University of Cambridge, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and NOAA, which send their researchers to work with Viking’s onboard science officers.
“Some people think marine research is sticking some kids on a ship to take measurements,” says Stanwell-Smith. “But we know we can do first-rate science—not spin.” Other cruise lines are also embracing sustainability initiatives, with coral-reef-restoration projects and water-quality measurements, usually in partnership with universities. Just about every vessel has “citizen-scientist” research programs allowing guests the opportunity to count birds or pick up discarded plastic on beaches. So far, Ponant and Viking are the only lines with serious research labs. Ponant is adding science officers to other vessels in its fleet. As part of the initiatives, scientists deliver onboard lectures and sometimes invite passengers to assist in their research.
Given the shortage of research vessels, Stanwell-Smith thinks this passenger-funded system will coexist nicely with current NGO- and government-owned ships. “This could be a new paradigm for exploring the sea,” he says. “Maybe the next generation of research vessels will look like ours.”
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Watch of the Week: the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon
The new release claims the throne as the world’s thinnest Tourbillon.
Piaget, the watchmaker’s watchmaker, has once again redefined the meaning of “ultra-thin” thanks to its newest masterpiece, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon—the world’s thinnest tourbillon watch.
In the world of high-watchmaking where thin is never thin enough—look at the ongoing battle between Piaget, Bulgari, and Richard Mille for the honours—Piaget caused a furore at Watches & Wonders in Geneva when it unveiled its latest feat to coincide with the Maison’s 150th year anniversary.
Piaget claims that the new Altiplano is “shaped by a quest for elegance and driven by inventiveness”, and while this might be true, it’s clear that the Maison’s high-watchmaking divisions in La Côte-aux-Fées and Geneva are also looking to end the conversation around who owns the ultra-thin watchmaking category.
The new Altiplano pushes the boundaries of horological ingenuity 67 years after Piaget invented its first ultra-thin calibre—the revered 9P—and six years after it presented the world’s then-thinnest watch, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept. Now, with the release of this unrivalled timepiece at just 2mm thick—the same as its predecessor, yet now housing the beat of a flying tourbillon, prized by watchmaking connoisseurs—you can’t help but marvel at its ultra-thin mastery, whether the timepiece is to your liking or not.
In comparison, the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Tourbillon was 3.95mm thick when unveiled in 2020, which seems huge on paper compared to what Piaget has been able to produce. But to craft a watch as thin and groundbreaking as its predecessor, now with an added flying tourbillon complication, the whole watchmaking process had to be revalued and reinvented.
“We did far more than merely add a tourbillon,” says Benjamin Comar, Piaget CEO. “We reinvented everything.”
After three years of R&D, trial and error—and a redesign of 90 percent of the original Altiplano Ultimate Concept components—the 2024 version needs to be held and seen to be believed. The end product certainly isn’t a watch for the everyday watch wearer—although Piaget will tell you otherwise—but in many ways, the company didn’t conjure a timepiece like the Altiplano as a profit-seeking exercise. Instead, overcoming such an arduous and technical watchmaking feat proves that Piaget can master the flying tourbillon in such a whimsical fashion and, in the process, subvert the current state-of-the-art technical principles by making an impactful visual—and technical—statement.
The only question left to ask is, what’s next, Piaget?
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Model: Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon 150th Anniversary
Diameter: 41.5 mm
Thickness: 2 mm (crystal included)
Material: M64BC cobalt alloy, blue PVD -treated
Dial: Monobloc dial; polished round and baton indices, Bâton-shaped hand for the minutes Monobloc disc with a hand for the hours
Water resistance: 20m
Movement: Calibre 970P-UC, one-minute peripheral tourbillon
Winding: Hand-wound
Functions: hours, minutes, and small seconds (time-only)
Power reserve: 40 hours
Availability: Limited production, not numbered
Price: Price on request
