Following two seasons of presentations mounted like inhabited art installations, OAMC made the move to a runway staged within the Faculté de Pharmacie de Paris, part of the Université Paris Descartes. Cofounder and creative director Luke Meier thought that an academic institution after dark would give the right clandestine aura for a collection that examines how people are accepted into special-access situations. With source material spanning secret societies to SWAT teams, he advanced his style of highly crafted technical essentials that register as purposefully cool.
Faithful to the workmanship that goes into men’s eveningwear, he adapted the basting stitches and hand-stitched reverse-construction tailoring to sleek pants and practical jackets, and in so doing, recontextualized the design language of dressing up. “There’s all this stuff you don’t see unless you literally take apart the suit,” he explained. “It’s very masculine and very menswear but [the type of] menswear that isn’t even relevant anymore.” So what is relevant? Tactical detailing, which Parisians observe on the gendarmerie who are increasingly visible. Meier destabilized the forces of ordinary and elite by showing articulated, reinforced knees on dress pants, or a body-armor-style vest in the type of Gobelin jacquard that might exist as a tapestry on the wall of a private club. “Something that might have been sacred, I’ve made tough,” he said. Symbols permeated the looks in ways not always visible. The pattern on the laser-cut felted sweater is a death-head moth; Aleister Crowley’s “Do What Thou Wilt” ran down the side of a coat. He seemed particularly attached to Horus, who, according to the Greek mythology (versus Egyptian), represented the god of silence. Notwithstanding the “OAMC” running up the backs of heavy-soled boots, these esoteric motivations seem to double as cryptic branding, a stamp of added value.
Meier has been rumored to take over the creative direction of Jil Sander with his wife, Lucie Meier (who, along with Serge Ruffieux, oversaw Dior’s interregnum between Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri). Unsurprisingly, he respectfully declined to comment other than to say, “That’s a complimentary rumor; tonight, I’m here for OAMC.” In any case, he possesses a point of view that could open many doors.
