New York Fashion Week: Gilded Age takes flight

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Since its launch in 2005, the Gilded Age label has been mining its namesake era -- America’s boom years of economic and industrial growth in the late 19th century -- for inspiration as well as technique. But, for spring-summer 2011, founder and creative director Stefan Miljanic jumped forward about four decades, taking his menswear from gilded to golden -- as in the Golden Age of Travel.

Inspired by Pan American Airways’ flying clipper ships of the late 1930s and the world of luxury travel they ushered in, Miljanic has turned out a collection of functional and comfortable-looking summer-weight pieces that still manage to look durable enough to last a lifetime.

The runway collection included the kind of rumpled leather jackets, striped and checked button-front woven shirts and lightweight khaki jackets the pilots of the day might have worn, many of the pieces accented with vintage-inspired aloha prints. Some boasted functional quasi-military details like button-flapped pockets, epaulettes and sleeve tabs designed to hold rolled-up sleeves.

Bottoms included a range of selvage denim and brushed-twill trousers, cotton-nylon swim trunks and a few pairs of shorts (one memorable pair of burgundy twill shorts was hemmed with a shredded aloha print that called to mind a grass skirt).

Just the kind of collection that makes you start to think about escaping to the islands -- or at least reminds you to set the DVR for the ‘Hawaii Five-O’ series reboot that premieres Sept. 20.

Either way, when it comes to booking orders for the spring-summer collection, Miljanic will probably be able to say, ‘Book ‘em Dan-O.’

-- Adam Tschorn in New York

Gilded Age spring-summer runway collection photo gallery

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