I ♥ Street Style // Utility Waistcoat Trend

Recent Spring/Summer 2020 runways has seen a resurgence in the utility trend. Designers are coming with the detached pocket style for the shirt and bottom wear clothing category as spotted during shows including Prada, Louis Vuitton and Junya Watanabe to name a few.

Pocket as a cloth is maturing as a brand-new category that arises in many unique modifications. In recent seasons we’ve seen what look like fly-fishing jackets on the runways. It’s no longer just the uniform of manual labour roles that have taken fashion houses, but the utilitarian gear of the battlefield too. Technical textures and features like anti-stab fabrics and bullet-proofing, made specifically for the front line, have remained in street-ready designs.

Dior | Louis Vuitton | Junya Watanabe | Emporio Armani

These shapes have been welcomed by streetwear fashionistos and fashion week street-stylers with the term ‘utilitarian’ casting a wide net and allowing for plenty of sartorial eccentricity, with no shortage of how many pockets is acceptable.

The utility vest' function is no longer simply a handy in-between layer – the utility vest can be placed atop long-sleeved T-shirts, hoodies and the more harness-style ones which handily work over your outerwear too. To kick start the utilitarian in you check out some of my  I ♥ Street Style finds below.