Boyfriend Material

Not one to rest on its laurels, Chanel continues to flex its watchmaking muscle by enriching its Boy.Friend collection with new variants this year.

- Elliot Lim

FROM RELAXED-FIT boyfriend jeans to oversized bomber jackets, women’s fashion taking design cues from menswear is no longer a new phenomenon. This trend can be traced back to the 1920s, when Gabrielle (or Coco, as she is better known) Chanel became one of the forward-thinking designers to incorporate traditionally male stylistic elements into her ready-towear collections.

In a departure from voluminous dresses with cinched waists popular at the time, Chanel presented jackets and pants in relaxed silhouettes. Notably, the fashion house also introduced jersey, a material more often used for male underwear at the time, into women’s apparel. Though several decades have elapsed since, the label’s penchant for borrowing from the boys continues to pervade its creations — including timekeepers.