A.P.C. founder Jean Touitou spends his summers on the island Pantelleria, technically part of Sicily but located closer to Tunisia. He has a small recording studio there, and an area to store his wine, and even some new pieces from his latest collaboration with Kevin Parker of Tame Impala. On a Zoom call Thursday, Touitou excused himself briefly to get his “favorite piece ever.” He came back with a large soft denim pouch, then slung the bag across his body and did a small jig with a quilted stuffed cat. Parker had selected the fabric, and for Touitou, the accessory—which he refers to as the Hippie bag—represents everything that makes this collaboration special: the blend of the masculine with the soft. “I am totally soft,” Touitou said, “but I'm a total warrior also.”
A.P.C.’s signature style is its spartan minimalism. If you weren’t introduced to the brand through its Menswear Starter Pack–ready raw denim, it was probably through its collaboration with Kanye West, which included a $120 plain white T-shirt that hogged most of the headlines at the time of its release. This new collection is downright maximalist by comparison—Parker took inspiration from “post-hippie communes and intentional-living communities of ’70s Australia,” per a press release. Over a call on Thursday, Parker explained, “I've always been really inspired by that idea of communes and communal living. It was this idea of an unofficial uniform that you can all wear together and imagining how a whole group of people wearing these colors would look and feel. Suddenly it made sense.”
The resulting collection is full of candy-striped trousers, corduroy pants, a quilted navy jacket, bucket hats, and a sweatsuit that “feels like you're wearing a cloud,” Parker said. The highlight of the collection, for me, is the sweaters: mineral gray pieces made out of alpaca, mohair printed with a psychedelic pattern made up of amoeba-like spots that bleed into each other. Parker is particularly proud of the T-shirts, which he said were made to his pinpoint-specific desires. He wanted it boxy and wide without being long, a shape that Parker and A.P.C. went back and forth on many times. The full collection will drop at A.P.C.'s stores and website on July 18 at 8 a.m. EST.
Parker, who is legendarily meticulous in the studio, was just as detail-oriented when it came to this collaboration. “To tell you the truth, he is extremely picky, and it can take time,” Touitou said. Two years’ time, to be more specific: Touitou remembers cutting his Pantelleria vacation slightly short to see Tame Impala play a concert in Paris and meet the band in the summer of 2022. Now, the collection is finally coming out, nearly two years later. Touitou admits he typically likes to work fast, but Parker was heavily involved in choosing the exact recycled fabrics and a type of mineral dye that is supposed to be better for the environment. “Picky is the word,” Touitou said, “but it's not a bad thing to be picky.”
It's a miracle the collaboration exists at all, considering neither party was immediately sold on the idea. Parker never really imagined himself designing clothes and has turned down multiple opportunities to do so, he said. As the band and brand were hanging out in Paris, “subconsciously I was probably gearing up to tell them like, 'Oh, it's not for me,'” he said. But Jean and his wife, Judith, who is A.P.C.'s artistic director, were so “chilled out,” according to Parker, that they pulled him in. He also admits: "I've got a soft spot for French people."
Touitou wasn't sure about the band right away, either. Years of working with musicians have taught him what to look for in collaborators; making distinctive music with sexy synths and juicy bass lines doesn’t mean you can convert that taste to clothes. “It was counterintuitive for me,” Touitou said, “because I was at some point disappointed that they were so casual.” But the designer understood there are varying degrees of casual: “Are they picky with the very right proportion of the sleeve, for example? There's one way to be casual, and you can feel that people will be able to imagine a garment,” Touitou. Parker was the right type of casual in the designer’s eyes.
What most attracted Touitou to Tame Impala was the mixture of softness and masculinity he now sees in the Hippie bag. The idea that Parker, who reminds the designer of ’60s bands like Pink Floyd, can wail on his guitar and make (sensitive) rock music and care just as much about finding the right alpaca farm is the exact balance Touitou is looking for. Touitou said, “It’s the whole thing.”