I found the recent rise in popularity of the Japanese brand A Presse very interesting. There’s a lot I like and respect about the brand, but I feel like it’s often misrepresented.
A Presse is sometimes described as heritage menswear. People see the denim jackets, chinos and other pieces created by founder Kazuma Shigematsu and describe them as a modern take on the Japanese designer’s Americana-forward ideas.
However, A Presse is more of a fashion brand than a heritage brand. This is the brand with the most distinct silhouette.
Yes, Shigematsu is a vintage collector and is very inspired by the work of people like Kinji Teramoto of 35summers and Kentaro Nakagomi of Coherence. And yes, it is. He is obsessed with production details, creating beautiful, organic, and time-worn fabrics.
But the fit pushes the brand even further towards fashion and is why most of the clothes don’t fit me.
I have tried A Presse clothes a few times in recent years. I’m always interested in menswear brands that boast a high level of quality, and I’m equally interested in The Row, Lemaire or Visvim, for example. It’s irritating. It broadens your perspective.
But while I often like aspects of A Presse clothes – if you feel like something is special, price shouldn’t be an issue – the silhouettes are too exaggerated.
On my most recent visit I tried out a number of pieces at Selfridge’s after seeing the work of my friend Chris Moorby. PS Used Sales. I tried on a variety of clothes, trying on overshirts, knits, chinos and canvas jackets.
knit (above) It’s made from sumptuous silk that feels closer to dried wool, with a hint of unexpected luxury. The dark olive color goes well with it, and the henley neckline is an unprecedented style, so it goes well with a shirt.
However, the sleeves pooled over my hands (as you can see in the model above, they are a size medium) and fell down the body to completely cover my hips. They don’t carry small items and in any case this was clearly the intended fit.
The bomber jacket (above) was the opposite. It was short enough to easily go up over mid-to-high-rise jeans, and had more blouses in the back than you’d find on even the largest old-school Valstarinos.
There’s nothing wrong with this type of look and other people like it, but it’s not a classic look. It’s deliberately exaggerated and deliberately far from the norm, which makes it more fashionable as a result.
This fit is why the brand is often described as having a ‘total look’. Likewise, you have to buy the entire look for the clothes to work. That’s not necessarily true, but it can feel that way because the exaggerated look doesn’t match the rest of your wardrobe.
There is a spectrum here, and brands fall into different places on that spectrum.
For example, Stoffa (above) is a brand we love and have covered frequently over the years. Agyesh and the team often design clothes in slightly less classic shapes, inventing and utilizing them in the same way they use fabrics.
But they are more subtle and as a result most of them blend in well with the rest of my wardrobe. Luke from LEJ also addressed this issue a bit further, but in a much more nuanced way. And brands like Rubato are diverse in very small ways. In fact, over time it has become more classic as the knits have become a little longer and the trousers have become a little thinner.
Now here are two other things about the exaggerated silhouette: One is that it tends to work on certain types of people. Second, they tend to date faster.
Large, draped clothes look good on larger men, especially those who are tall and wide. It’s a great look on Chris and actually one of the reasons Adret clothes look so good on Adam Rogers (their founder). But it’s not for everyone.
Big looks are also more likely to look 10 to 20 years older than regular looks. This isn’t a problem if you’re updating your wardrobe frequently anyway, but it’s not what most people are after.
These two points come together when we consider something like the Hedi Slimane skinny tailoring (below) that dominated menswear looks in the early 2000s. They were over-hyped, so they became outdated more quickly. And big men had a hard time wearing them. It’s the opposite of today’s fashion.
I really like A Presse. From fabric to small things like small labels. It feels refreshing compared to a lot of the fashion we’ve had in the last 10 years.
People who criticize brands like A Presse on criteria like quality are also missing most of the point. Developing unique fabrics is much more difficult and more expensive.
Lastly, A Presse has a variety of fits. Some are more straightforward and classic than others. But most fall into this larger category, and the broader point is also more important. That said, thinking about clothing in terms of silhouette is a useful perspective. We haven’t talked about this enough in PS over the years.
