Ami. Menswear Spring 2020 - Paris Fashion Week

  (Images from the designer and the public domain. Credited to the photographer/company where applicable: Gorunway.com)

It is not uncommon for a brand to go belly-up, figuratively speaking, which doesn't mean it can't be, using a tedious business term, restructured.  But, a more appropriate process, with the financial jargon aside, is an reinvigoration of ideas, which is the importance of stepping back, looking into what you created and reassessing the concepts of the brand to either continue or bury it.  Alexandre Mattiussi founded his signature brand Ami in 2011, yet in 2002, he shut it down on the bases on financial woes.  Over the years I have seen so many brands just fold, without any attempt to reinstate its ideas.  Fashion, as an industry is a hard lesson and it should be, too many brands vying for pole position with markets already extremely saturated, you have to deliver through what ever means necessary in an attempt at crafting the uniqueness, styled and cultivated to set a selling point – that is yours.  Not someone else's, sans the assistance of investment, to which Mattiussi was able to gain. Thus, was the beginning of Ami in its current leaner and stylized form.  

Unisex really only works in one direction; female.  Very difficult and novelty orientated for female styles to work back towards the male aesthetic.  She is more fluid and non-dualistic in her presentation than the male, which means the array of clothing can and in most cases is marketed towards female buyers. That in turn entails mens styles, as noted in Mattiussi's 2018 collection, he wanted to create “menswear for women”.  A similar catch cry from Haider Ackermann who is now heavily imprinting the male fashion looks onto women.  

Mattiussi has returned black to the runways that of late, has shifted somewhat away as a stalwart achromatic.  In replace of neutral tones that in a lot ways, if the desire is to create a sombre or gothic style, darkened colors and their softened perspectives can also exude the same temperament.  Which for his brand Ami, he has also placed in some toned down colors, mixed with sharp reds, that does feel very similar to what Ackermann has done with his past collections, shifting into a defined contrast of colors, styled in fine tailored modernist looks.  Their is also a revisit of the contemporary avant-gade of the last twenty years, although this is very musted as the Mattiussi adds colors and maintains the dynamic of mens styles (tough male looking belts on women's dresses!) for women in its modern impression, so it holds no rustic appeal, ensuring that the collection is well presented in its theme intention.  

Also noted is the use of pink as a tough and rugged looking color, which is so underutilized in fashion due to its stigma.  The different hues of pink can offer some of the most dark and intense looks, particulary for mens fashion.