“The thing about Paris is that you can step outside and see the most beautiful man crossing the street, and he’s just in jeans and a shirt,” said Ami’s Alexandre Mattiussi at a preview of his spring collection, “it’s just not fair!” It certainly is not, and it’s also quite distracting for those of us who opt for cycling to avoid Parisian traffic, something this reviewer shares with Mattiussi: “Even if I’m wearing a tux I’ll take my bike,” the designer said.
This freewheeling nonchalance was a key element to Mattiussi’s spring lineup. “I went back to where I started, to jeans and a shirt,” he said. And so he outfitted Clément Chabernaud, fashion’s ultimate French crush, in a tuxedo shirt with its sleeves bunched up to his elbows and a pair of flowy straight leg trousers. “People in Paris are beautiful,” Mattiussi continued, “Paris is my city and my first inspiration.”
His idea was to make easy clothes for throwing on, stepping outside, “and meeting friends for drinks and a cigarette at a terrace, the French way of life.” This held true for Mattiussi’s men’s tailored jackets, coats, and casual shirts, most of which were finished with a flirty slit down the back. It was also true of his tiny men’s shorts worn with easy suede loafers and roomy polos (it’s been a men’s season for legs, if nothing else). The women’s frocks looked French enough, with semi-sheer pleats in dresses and swaying circle skirts. They had a nice sense of play, while the men’s had the lived-in patina that comes with having worn the same clothes over a long summer day.
“This summer, we stay in Paris,” said Mattiussi. There was no sense of frivolous wanderlust, no seaside fantasy or clothes that can only be worn on holiday or in Instagram posts. This collection was a metropolitan affair, an utterly relaxed and deliciously sweltering vision—from the casting and the music to the styling and the clothes—that felt like the fashion equivalent to an ice cold aperol spritz condensing in the heat (ideally while consumed on a date with the aforementioned street-crossing French man).
Mattiussi said that, after some self reflection, he had found his purpose: To make people happy with his clothes: “I don’t care about fashion, I don’t care about hype. I care about dressing people and making them happy. It’s real, it’s sophisticated, but it’s not pretentious,” he concluded. Those are words to live and dress by.
