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The Department of Just Right
By MIKE ALBO
THE discreet yet unique clothes at
A.P.C. may be timeless, but I can?t say that conclusively. It?s
impossible to claim an outfit is timeless while we are wearing it. I am
sure, for example, that when guys were sporting powdered wigs, rouge
and pointy little beribboned boots, someone looked in the mirror and
thought to himself, ?Wow, I have finally landed on a hot and classic
look for fall!?
So far, though, A.P.C. has somehow stayed topical ? at least for the
last 20 years. Last week was, embarrassingly, the first time I had
visited the A.P.C. store in SoHo, and when I mentioned to my
much-more-savvy friends that I was writing about it, some of them
gasped. It was as if I had just said I was going to visit Patti Smith.
They told me stories of a beloved bomber or blazer or pair of jeans
that they still cherish. One friend said he is still wearing a jacket
he bought at the store when it opened in 1992, which means that jacket
has survived at least 18 trend cycles.
Jean Touitou, born in Tunisia, started A.P.C. (Atelier de Production
et de Création) even earlier, in 1987. He likes to say in interviews
that he never set out to be a designer. A history and linguistics
graduate of the Sorbonne, he found work in Paris at places like Kenzo,
Agnès b. and Joseph, but in the end, let his talented hands take over,
opening a shop on a quiet residential street on the Left Bank in 1988.
Now the brand has outposts in Hong Kong, Berlin, Antwerp and Stockholm,
among others, along with nine stores in Japan.
For a few years now, Mr. Touitou has avoided high-pressure runway
presentations like those taking place in New York this week. But A.P.C.
doesn?t really need to grab the attention of scurrying, overloaded
editors in a 10-minute burst of seating-chart insanity. Its stylish
basics are already used in countless magazine spreads, often to offset
or tone down faddish runway creations of, say, horsehair and pompoms.
It?s hard to articulate Mr. Touitou?s subtle aesthetic. In a nervous
e-mail message to him, I called his clothes ?understated,? and Mr.
Touitou responded like the auteur he is, saying: ?I don?t consider
A.P.C. understated. But I sure do consider a lot of brands overstated.
That?s the thing: we change all the time, and yet it doesn?t seem we
do.?
Like its merchandise, the store in SoHo is a study in stylish
restraint. The floors of the large room are wide unfinished planks of
undulating wood, left behind by Julian Schnabel, who worked in this
space back in the day. Rough chocolate-colored burlap is used to create
curtained dressing areas in the back and to cover sensors at the door.
The clothing is hung on four rows of piping, divided into men?s and
women?s selections, along with narrow tables that present sparsely
placed accessories: a purple and yellow rep tie, a snakeskin wallet, an
ocher cashmere sweater. The mirrors on the opposing side walls are so
big you can check out your clothes scenically, as you might wear them
to a party in Duncan Sheik?s fabulous 2,300-square-foot TriBeCa loft,
for instance.
On the day I visited, three breathtakingly beautiful women were
working. With their tousled hair, minimal makeup and careful smiles,
they were like three different moods of Charlotte Gainsbourg. One set
up a dressing room for me.
I was tempted by a white Western-style shirt with mottled snap
buttons, for $138. A hooded cotton fleece sweatshirt had a button
collar and a cool silk-screen of an eagle clutching guitars above the
revolutionary expression ?We Do Our Part.? But it was $122, and I just
plain old refuse to pay more than $40 for sweats ? my one feeble rule.
I coveted pretty much everything else on the racks. I really wanted
the green plaid military-style wool jacket for $382, and if I had an
abiding trust in our economy right now, I would have charged it on my
sad little plain white HSBC debit card. Instead I settled on a cotton
poplin shirt with a removable contrasting white collar ($168). When I
tried it on, I discovered why my friends were so gaspy: it fit
perfectly. Worn with the collar open, the correct amount of chest was
exposed ? not too buttoned up, not too Tom Ford. This is an important detail in male cleavage that many shirt makers get wrong.
These are clothes that get it right; they whisper: ?Shh. Not so
loud.? Sometimes, when you see a lamb?s wool jacquard pullover for
$199, they say: ?Shh. You can get this at Uniqlo for way less.?
But for the most part, you can see why the garments, designed and
cut much more expertly than at those overstating fashion superstores,
are not cheap. Instead, they hover right below high-fashion prices, so
that a beautiful shirt becomes convincingly attainable, and suddenly
you forget that you need to pay your quarterly health insurance bill
this month.
It was in this amnesiac state that I stepped in the back room where
A.P.C. offers its well-known line of dark denim. I have refrained from
buying jeans for the last four years because I was getting freaked out
by the trendy whiskering, sanding and detailing going on. Jeans-making
is beginning to rival the painful artistry of Chinese calligraphy.
It was relieving to see these uniformly dark selections, separated
neatly in four easy-to-comprehend waist and leg variations. The dark
denim style has changed little since the store introduced its Standard
jeans back when it opened.
I tried on a pair of New Standards, which felt sturdy and had a
higher waist than the preciously dappled and faded low-rise boot-cut
jeans I bought in 2003. They were also only $140, which, coming out of
our Baroque Denim period, is a steal.
The description of the jeans is yet another example of the measured
approach A.P.C. brings to its clothes as it strives to avoid faddish
extremes: ?Neither high nor low rise ... arrow leg, slightly fitted at
bottom to give the appearance of a straight leg.?
The jeans, the soft poplin, the huge mirrors, the beautiful women ?
I guess I was enchanted by A.P.C. But at some point, I began to feel a
little imprisoned, too. Not necessarily by the lovely clothes, but by
our entire era of perfect fits and meticulous hipness. Part of me
wanted to just get naked and wrap myself up in the burlap curtain and
scream. I?ll save that for the next trend cycle, but I have a feeling
Mr. Touitou has designed my outfit already.
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