Amiri Fall 2022 Menswear Collection

A question after last night’s Amiri show at Milk Studios in Los Angeles: Does Amiri look like everything or does everything look like Amiri? With pooling kick flare pants, long tunic shirts layered under bombers, and omnipresent crossbody bags, Amiri’s latest menswear is exactly on the pulse. Look across the ocean at the highest, most uppity echelons of the Paris menswear scene and you’ll find exactly these kinds of groovy L.A. guy clothes. There’s no real point in trying to figure out who came up with it first—that’s a very tired way of thinking about fashion. Who is doing it better? Maybe the more important question is: Who is having more fun?

Surrounded by friends, family, collaborators, and a cast of celebrities like Travis Barker, Kourtney Kardashian, Angus Cloud, and Kyle Kuzma, Mike Amiri was definitely having a great time yesterday. The show was a homecoming after years in Paris followed by digital presentations during the pandemic. To mark his return, he struck up a collaboration with the most L.A. artist of the 2000s, Wes Lang, whose pieces are featured in several of Amiri’s American stores. “We didn’t want to do the typical artist-designer thing,” Amiri said before the show. “We wanted something more personal.”

Lang’s way of meticulously layering paint and fine linework informed Amiri’s process. The materiality of his garments gets better each season, and here there were hidden-seam patchwork leather trousers, tapestry knits, painted hem pants, and suede, macramé, and knit cardigans. The craft is as elevated as ever, but the thing Amiri fans will take away is swagger. With ultra-high vents in the back of robe coats, layered scarves under knits, and those aforementioned flares, the Amiri silhouette is in constant motion, practically bolting forward.

It’s the way Mike himself dresses and the way the crowd of L.A. movers and shakers that amassed for the show do too. Experiencing the Amiri vibe in situ amplifies the brand’s effect and message. He’s not just “the jeans guy,” he’s created a community that looks to him not only for fashion advice but for a new way to be. (Lang’s skulls were crossed with messages of positivity, for example.)

Amiri is arguably one of the most impactful menswear designers in America right now. Would it be even more impactful to see his clothing alongside his American peers, the ones who are also innovating in the menswear scene? That will be the next question for Amiri, and for American fashion at large.