THE JOURNAL
OK, we’ll admit it: we do have a bit of a soft spot for AMI PARIS here at MR PORTER. For one thing, we’re the same age. Back in 2011, while we were preparing to open our digital doors for the first time, the Givenchy and Dior Homme alumnus Mr Alexandre Mattuissi was getting ready to go it alone and start his own label, which he named “Ami” after his ambition to create clothes for his friends. But it’s not just our shared history. Truth be told, if AMI had arrived on the scene only last year instead of 11 years ago, we’d probably love it just as much as we do now.
There’s just something about the brand’s collections, a _je ne sais quoi _that keeps us coming back season after season. Mattuissi has always found a way of capturing the current mood in menswear. He was way ahead of the curve on relaxed tailoring, anticipating the collision of formalwear and casualwear years before it hit the mainstream, and was an early advocate for tailored sweatpants, sneakers worn with suits, and many of the other, small-yet-radical-at-the-time changes that have since been adopted as standard in the modern man’s wardrobe.
But this forward-thinking approach hasn’t come at the expense of the brand’s singular style, which, despite its casual leanings, is never without a soupçon of Parisian elegance. Mattiussi has made sure to retain a certain formality throughout his collections. Even as streetwear grew to become the dominant commercial force in the industry, you always knew you could still hit up AMI for a great Oxford shirt, a double-breasted camel coat or a perfectly slouchy pair of virgin-wool trousers. That’s one of the reasons why the brand has proven so popular with urban professionals, who view its elevated take on casualwear as the ideal uniform for the modern workplace.
Such consistency of vision is a rare thing in the fashion industry, where creative directors switch teams almost as regularly as Premier League football managers, and big brands are constantly changing course in pursuit of The Next Big Thing. Not so at AMI, where, behind the contemporary fashion brand – one that shows at Paris Fashion Week, no less – there is a long-term business looking well beyond the limits of the current trend cycle.
Just look at the brand's signature logo, the Ami de Coeur. First introduced in 2017, this disarmingly simple graphic – a capital letter A with a heart perched on top – has since become one of the most visible and recognisable symbols in menswear. A sort of Parisian take on the Ralph Lauren Polo pony, you can find it subtly embroidered on T-shirts, polo shirts and Oxford shirts, woven into the brand’s colourful range of socks, or intarsia-knitted onto the breast of a cardigan.
Our pick of the season? This highlighter-bright pink knitted hoodie. Unmistakably AMI while also nailing the current trend for vibrant colour, it’s proof that, after 11 years, Mattiussi is still on note – even as he marches to the beat of his own drum.