A.P.C. founder Jean Touitou showed designs for men and women in a cabaret in Paris’ Pigalle red-light district on Saturday night, breaking with the brand’s tradition for daytime presentations at A.P.C.’s Left Bank headquarters.
The geeky Sixties-inspired silhouettes that are one of the brand’s signatures — cue a burnt orange suede coat dress, laundry stripe overalls and stiff denim in almost every possible shape and size — were paraded on models dad-dancing on stage to funky tunes spun by French electro duo Paradis. Apart from the rhythm, there was nothing new here, but then again, why change a successful recipe?
An electronic message board above the stage scrolled Touitou’s inspirations for spring. “Hysterically normal…camouflaged by normality…naïvely sexy…tone on tone on tone…denim denim denim…intellectual therefore erotic…against the empire of signs.” The designer let the board do the talking, as he wasn’t in the mood.
The event morphed into what A.P.C. called its first Bam Bam Party, inspired by the Sister Nancy reggae song of the same name. It plans to repeat such festivities — minus the presentation — for its cool crowd following every two months in a different location around the world.