Marco Falcioni was committed to conveying taste and attitude with his fall show for Boss — an ’80s sartorial revival with dandy flourishes. And plenty of suggestions on how C-suite types can match a paisley tie with the perfect Oxford shirt and frescolana blazer and look dapper. Or how boss ladies can zhuzh up sculptural tailoring with loose turtleneck underpinnings and silk scarves. 

The dress-up game inspiration came through while looking at the decade’s Boss “selling books,” curated fashion manuals done in prestige paper in which still life images of collection pieces were grouped in ready-to-sell outfits. Today’s often-bland look books would pale in comparison. 

“One of the very first things that was very important to me was to give tailoring a meaning,” Falcioni said in a preview a few days ahead of Thursday’s show. “Uniformity is not our way to go into the future… we want to bring tailoring in a landscape that is more lifestyle… We want to be a little bit more real. And we want our women and our men to embrace different moments [of their lives],” wearing Boss, he said. 

The office uniform was there, but came with a lot more character than one would expect.

Late ’80s, slightly dropped power shoulders, cinched waists and high-buttoning notch lapels, the latter two references to ’90s tailoring, coexisted on elongated blazers for her, paired with high-cuffed, silhouette-stretching pants, and in men’s suits for him.

Falcioni brought back the double flap pockets on double-breasted blazers with a curvilinear construction on the back to put emphasis on what he characterized backstage as a very sensual but often neglected body part. 

Men embraced the seasonal flair for dressing up with a plethora of suit separates where relaxed proportions got bulkier by way of layering. For one, handsome leather blousons and anoraks were tossed over office shirt-and-tie combos, toughening the sartorial looks and adding a cool factor.

The richness of materials, including brushed alpaca, cashmere and ostrich for overshirts and car coats, mingled with playful touches, such as pocket squares, silk scarves peeking from under top collars, and ties artfully worked into floral brooches — offering a glimpse into neglected corners of the Boss archives, when white collars had fun with patterns, from paisley to geometric motifs. 

“We did a little bit of beautiful confusion, as I like to call it,” the designer said.

Compared to earlier fashion spectacles, this Boss show felt more intimate — save for the frenzy caused by David Beckham and K-pop sensation S.Coups, who took their seats last second. It allowed Falcioni’s vision to refocus the spotlight on the tunes of a terrific soundtrack.

As the designer and his team took their final bow, the 1981 hit “I’m in Love With a German Film Star” by The Passions boomed from loudspeakers, sparking cheerful nostalgia.