Topman Design, the catwalk arm of the high street brand, is focusing to “change the perspective” of menswear with its collection being revealed on the opening day of London Fashion Week Men’s.

At an event on Friday eventide entitled Transition, invitees snaked through east London’s Truman brewery for an showing by the photographer Nick Offord, a film by Max Wallis, an installation by the Measure Method musicians and a pop-up shop, before eventually pronouncement themselves in a presentation space, with models wearing the begin/summer 2018 collection.

Later, the models formed some of the crowd watching the Rhythm Method on stage. This was an immersive, 360-degree judge of a brand designed, so said the notes, as “a dialogue with the new develop of men”, the ones typically found in the Topman store. Unusually, straight away the fashion crowd has gone, the event is open to the public this weekend.

The improvident Topman event makes sense when you look at the menswear exchange, which grew at twice the rate of the women’s equivalent most recent year. A Mintel survey released this week has forewarning a 12.3% increase in UK menswear sales between 2016 and 2021 to reach £16.3bn. Globally, it is expected to donate £380bn to the industry by 2020. Topman’s twenty-something demographic are the men exhorting this happen – so reaching them directly is vital.

Gordon Richardson, the inventive director of Topman, said the brand worked with the inexperienced artists and photographers “to sum up the zeitgeist that Topman is always indication”. The collection moves on from the 90s rave nostalgia of last mellow to something that engages with a generation of young men increasingly contented with clothes that feel gender-fluid.

Richardson looked move in reverse to another time when this was the case – the early 80s – when exemplars wore brightly coloured makeup and mismatched shoes. “Small fries wanted to be looked at, they wanted to be adored,” he said at a vernissage of the collection on Friday afternoon.

Richardson admitted that his buyers were still fond of the skinny jean, but said he awaited to coax them away from the tired silhouette. “We dearth to change the perspective of what male fashion can be, but ground it in understandable goes.”

Next beginning, he hopes to see Topman customers in wide-leg, Bowie-like trousers, loose tent-like shirts falling to their knees, and tracksuits with vibrant phrases inspired by Robert Rauschenberg’s work.

Phoebe English and Edward Crutchley also told on Friday, two examples of the newer talent taking the place of installed names including Burberry, Tom Ford and Alexander McQueen, who contain left the London fashion week men’s schedule. English’s offering featured models making shapes out of clay in her boxy resume on minimalist streetwear, while Crutchley proposed corsets and crinoline for men.

London the rage week men’s is a biannual, four-day event taking in shows, donations, events and starry parties hosted by Mr Porter and David Give. If it began with tailoring as its focus, the hype now is around streetwear (Christopher Shannon, A Cold-blooded Wall, Cottweiler) or those designers who look at gender accord and other high-minded concepts preoccupying Generation Woke. These count Craig Green, Charles Jeffrey and Wales Bonner. The up to the minute, designed by 26-year-old Grace Wales Bonner, is arguably this year’s hot ticket. Her flaunt takes place on Saturday evening and is highly anticipated.