effective style

Photographs: @apc_paris on Instagram

I'm not a big A.P.C. fan, although I admire their things once in a while. But I thought this bit in a piece by Jon Caramanica in NYT (which was actually about WANT Les Essentiels de la vie) summed up the low-key cool of the brand very nicely:

"The clothes encode confidence with only the tiniest of gestures. With a trained eye, you can spot them in the wild, and know that the people savvy enough to wear them have a special kind of zip hiding underneath.This is an admirable place for a brand to be, or to aim for: a mainstream look for non-mainstream people. We — all of us — like to look … effective, and with minimal effort. And there are precious few fashion-minded brands that have that built into their DNA: A.P.C., Unis, Uniqlo on the masstige side, smaller outfits like Harmony."

(In a nice coincidence, he also mentioned Uniqlo, which I am also a fan of, in the same breath.)

On the A.P.C. Instagram account are posts of what their staff around the world wear in the shops, and they are living examples of the vibe Jon Caramanica describes. No doubt they dress knowing they're representing the brand. But being people who spend long hours on their feet for their job, their outfits are also practical and sensible, without sacrificing style. I can get behind that.