Literary theorists from the Russian formalists to Kurt Vonnegut have contended that, despite the millions of novels, poems, plays, TV shows, and movies written or told throughout human history, there is only a very limited number of stories. What separates them is the style of the telling and the intricacies of plot and context.
That idea translates to fashion, and especially to menswear. Old stories are told over and over again. It is the manner of the telling that defines their success or failure.
Ami is interesting in the context of runway because the stories that it tells are almost outrageously banal. Take tonight’s look comprising a buffalo check shirt above jeans that were basically Mom above black derby shoes. Or a black hooded puffer gilet over a check shirt over loose black pants. Or . . . everything in this collection. The craziest thing here was a purple V-neck—plus, as usual, the crazily beautiful girls who Alexandre Mattiussi casts for his shows to demonstrate the versatility of his clothes.
What makes Mattiussi an author of note is his knack for telling menswear stories we all know extremely well in a way that makes us listen to them afresh. The following is an almost shamefully fashion sentence, but he is a master of the meaningful pant. The dullness of his jeans was brave, the high-cinched jersey track pants gave the greatcoats above them a generation-shifting facelift, and his ongoing reclamation of the ’90s straight-leg and slight break wide pant in stiff fabrics lent the short check coats, blousons, and denims above them a compensatory nattiness. Other hot brands use sleight of hand with their signifiers—logo mash-ups, or whatever—to make the old seem new. It’s far harder to bake an old recipe just right so it appeals to the transient tastes of today, but Ami has got that down pat.
