APC in Nytimes.com

[poly800rock]

saw this this morning.there is also a cool article on US made stuff in the same section

Critical Shopper

The Department of Just Right

By MIKE ALBO

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A.P.C.

131 Mercer Street (near Prince Street); (212) 966-0069

TRYING ON An unfussy SoHo store of intelligently constructed garments priced right on the high edge of reasonable.

SOUNDING OFF The store has its own music label — compilations of fashiony dance bands, French-Arabic tunes and other obscurities. Go on YouTube and check out the designer himself, Jean Touitou, playing guitar and singing jangly covers of “As Tears Go By†and “Day Tripper†in a warehouse full of swaying cool people.

BRANCHING OUT The brand stays under the radar, but opened a store in Los Angeles in June. For the last four years, A.P.C. has collaborated with the British designer Jessica Ogden on Madras, a line of casual clothes (soft henleys, cargo pants, pretty dresses), which will be presented in the store in October.

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!â€

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.â€

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.â€

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.â€

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.

[jayrock]

what the fuck is an "arrow leg" fit

learn to spell nytimes

(I'm assuming this was copied/pasted)

[verb]

"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!â€

Pretty good quote.

[poly800rock]

what the fuck is an "arrow leg" fit

learn to spell nytimes

(I'm assuming this was copied/pasted)

how did i spell nytimes incorrectly?

[Tarmac]

i think he means, ny times intended to spell it narrow leg, but messed up.

"learn how to spell, you damn ny times you"

[jayrock]

^^^

what he said

[headcoat]

The chicks who work there are indeed hot.