Alexandre Mattiussi was jangling several sets of keys in his hands backstage before this collection—they were for the cottages in the bocages of Normandy where he fantasized that this season’s Ami men and women were heading for the weekend.
Just listening to Mattiussi talk was like taking a little holiday. He said: “I was born and raised in Gisors in Normandy, but this is my 20th year in Paris, and I’ve always shown the collections in a Parisian environment. But this season I wanted to escape, just for the weekend. I think slow is the new fast, because everything is so crazy now, you know, in the fashion industry. I feel I want to bring back something calm, tender, romantic, and soft.”
The looks had an artfully thrown-together quality. Mattiussi’s models rolled down the delightful wheatfield set with Cuban collar shirts half untucked over their fitted track pants—quite high-hemmed—and nylon parkas. They wore broad fishing hats and oversize nubbly knit sweaters Mattiussi said he imagined they’d lifted from their dads’ stash of weekend clothes in the cottage. There were nods to sportswear; fitted lycra shorts under a wide-whale brown corduroy short, genteel sneakers, that type of thing. Much of this collection though focused on the casualized tailoring in jackets and topcoats that Mattiussi has become a master of. It was highly want-able and wearable and no drama.
A friend wondered afterward if this collection really needs or merits a fashion show, because, you know, it’s just, like, clothes—and that lack of drama. Vehemently, I reckoned it does. Painting a convincing scene of soft-focus respite, contemplation, and chill via clothing—and that wheatfield—for sure makes the clothing desirable.
Back to Mattiussi: “The idea is that you take a train after work with your friends, and instead of getting off in Paris, you decide you are going to the end of the line—the terminus—to escape, breathe some air, and just enjoy the time. Just listening to nature, not checking your phone, not watching stories on Instagram. To have your coffee and stare out the window.” Had Miyake not been immediately afterward, I’d have headed directly to Gare Saint-Lazare, phone off, hat on, Normandy-bound, for a spot of Neufchatel and chill.
