The Guys Have It

"I don't kid myself thinking everyone loves it," says designer Thom Browne of his signature slim-fitted silhouette. (Helayne Seidman for The Washington Post)

This storyboard hipster is the holy grail of Hart Schaffner Marx, inspiring the company to create the Travelor suit, with its simple orange-and-brown label, three-inch-wide-lapels, lean cut and side vents.

Down the hall at Hickey-Freeman -- one of Hartmarx's luxury brands -- executives have introduced the "hickey" line, in which a cashmere jacket sells for $1,395. Created by a team of designers moonlighting from sister labels, hickey is a retro-preppy collection filled with slim-fitting blazers, lean chinos with a shortened rise, quilted corduroy jackets, ties printed with tiny marijuana leaves and an intarsia sweater that reads, "Wanna hickey?"

"What we're trying to do is bridge between adolescence and adulthood," says Paulette Garafalo, CEO and group president of Hartmarx's luxury group.

The design team dresses nothing like the traditional Hickey-Freeman customer who prefers business casual chinos and country club blazers. Instead, its members wear narrow flat-front dress pants and no socks with their tassel loafers. They are awash in pastels from lilac to cornflower blue. There are no laces in their sneakers.

The hickey suit, says designer Billy Draddy, "probably fits more like your grandfather's Hickey-Freeman suit from the 1960s. It's reminiscent of something JFK might wear."

The jacket is about 29 1/2 inches long instead of 31. It has a narrow lapel; it has a center vent. The suit has a seven-inch drop -- the difference between the jacket and the trouser sizes -- instead of the more traditional six inches. And the collection also is filled with color, such as strawberry pink corduroy trousers.

"It was such a long time since anyone wore color," Draddy says. "My whole childhood was about wearing pink and green and yellow Lacoste shirts."

Under the giant umbrella of Hartmarx, menswear has been colorized and doused with Rat Pack attitude. "Pleasantville" has collided with "Ocean's Eleven."

Preppy Love

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After a decade of dormancy, young designers have emerged with strong points of view. They are enamored of style rather than trends. They are keen on tailoring, preppy formality and Ivy League tradition. Designer John Bartlett, one of the most creative and intellectually agile of menswear designers, is back in business after financial woes forced him to close shop for two years.

Bartlett has a lean, no-carbs-have-passed-these-lips physique. He has short sandy hair, wears wire-rimmed glasses and when he smiles could easily pass for a kindly English doctoral student. He launched his collection in 1992 and quickly gained prominence for his Forrest Gump geek chic that incorporated Hush Puppies in shades of purple and green.

Since his return in 2004, Bartlett has muted some of his more provocative tendencies. He's not presenting his collections as a meditation on the writings of Jean Genet, for instance. He signed a suit license with prices ranging from $995 to $1,500. And he has refocused on the preppy heart of American menswear, as underscored by a recent presentation at the Harvard Club, a social outpost of his alma mater.

The media are feeding interest in menswear. The fashion Web site Style.com expanded last year, giving birth to a separate men's site: http://www.men.style.com/ .