Gareth Pugh is taking on menswear.

The very important and semi-surprising piece of information was kept under wraps until the official announcement of the Paris Men’s Fashion Week schedule yesterday. In the past month, Matthew Wiliamson, Carlos Miele, Christophe Decarnin and Roland Mouret have all announced plans to introduce menswear. Pugh, the least commercial of them all, will close the week with his show at Palais de Tokyo, the same venue in which he showed his women’s collection last September.

Pugh’s incorporated menswear into past collections but never produced a full line. We can’t help but picture a more masculine version of his Spring 09 collection - very tight, futuristic, entirely black and white and hopefully no where near Jay-Z’s next tour.

It’s a risky move - Fendi, Valentino and Marni have all cancelled their men’s shows thanks to the tanking economy and Zac Posen told WWD that he will absolutely not move forward with plans for a secondary line despite wanting to for years.

But Rick Owens, who with his wife Michelle Lamy has a 49% stake in Pugh’s brand and is also showing a full men’s collection in Paris, would rather we just go with it.

“Just come with an open mind,” he says.

No problem. A ticket to Paris, however, not so easily done.