Duckie Brown talks Fashion Week

More is more this season on the Duckie Brown runway.

Garments in every fabric and print imaginable — floral, camouflage, bright tweed and, our favorite, a black-and-gray bug-print — fill the menswear line’s third-floor Meatpacking District studio a few weeks before the Sept. 10 fashion show.

“It’s an overload of color and fabrication,” said Daniel Silver, who along with partner Steven Cox makes up Duckie Brown’s design team.

Known for playing with shapes and taking risks on the runway (last spring’s show featured diaper-like men’s swim trunks), the designers are layering garment upon garment, print upon print and fabric upon fabric for Spring 2011.

A cheeky bug-print anorak, for example, wouldn’t be the sole standout item a model wears. That jacket might be layered over a pair of camo pants, a bright shirt and a pair of woven or metallic shoes from Forsheim by Duckie Brown.

The designers are also adding another element of interest with casting their show. They’re trying to find models with long hair so that each can sport a different hairstyle on the runway.

“We have a saying — ‘everything and the kitchen sink’; well, he says ‘everything but the kitchen sink,’” said Silver, pointing to Cox. “How many layers can you add? But on the same level you can get dressed in the dark. It’s intuitive dressing.”

That said, the designers don’t expect customers to walk on the streets dressed like one of the models in their show. Instead, they hope men “take a piece of Duckie Brown and make it your own,” Silver said.

That could mean pairing a floral shirt with a white T-shirt and cargo shorts, or a pink tweed jacket with jeans.

Duckie Brown does make basics — cargo shorts,  white T-shirts, single-hued jackets — but nothing from Duckie Brown is really that basic.

The white tee the designers showed us, for instance, has an asymmetrical element; the cargo shorts are shorter than most brands’ versions.

Still, in the designers’ minds, those staples are better for the street than the runway.

“We’re not showing a cargo short and white T-shirt on the runway,” Silver said. “It’s a fashion show.