You can see why Amiri is apparently rivalling traditional Euroluxe menswear marques in certain markets. Through being designed by its founder instead of a gun to hire brought in to keep a last-century name ticking over, as well as through the nature of that design, it is highly relatable both in concept and content. Years ago, maybe 2015, I remember speaking to Mike Amiri about his love for reworking denim by means as extreme as taking it to the desert and peppering it with gunshot. Today, in Paris, you could see his roots remain in denim but also how far he has flourished since by expanding his practice of unorthodox artisanal application.
There are now 75 staff in his LA atelier, he said: “where we’re just kind of playing with painting and dye techniques and embroideries.” The collection is now made between the US and Italy (minority investor Renzo Rosso, another denim-rooted success story, was on site today). Technically impressive pieces here included jacquard denim; patched washed denim baseball shirts; embroidered Pegasus bombers with tufted wing sections that fluttered in the (very) warm breeze when the models walked; tapestry-woven bandana print shorts, shirts, and bucket hats; football shirts in embossed croc print leather shaped to fall like the real sporting deal; and vintage patched varsity jackets. The progression of color in the show, from baseline washed-denim blue through a few slowly played out chords to marine green and then blue again, was confidently executed and dreamy to watch.
The tucked in jacket suiting was gimmicky, sure, yet it looked pretty good—Amiri said he’d been thinking about achieving a boilersuit effect—and sometimes gimmicks really take off. It worked best of all in an ingeniously finished pinstripe fabric meant to appear as if it had been weathered by sunlight, something especially apt at an outdoor show where several audience members were inspired to go shirtless and catch rays. It’s exciting to see labels from outside the luxury firmament step into Paris proper and give such a compelling account of themselves; this has been a good season for that.
