JEAN Touitou spent his childhood under the roofs, streets hot sun shade of palm trees and fragrant markets of Tunis, Tunisia. However, the atmosphere of the exuberant city has no influence on the aesthetics.
"My whole family has been influenced by Nordic Design", Touitou said. His family was in the leather business, which his father often took place in Sweden. "I drank the milk minimalistic from the age of 6 months." And when he was nine, the family North Africa Touitou left for a new home in Paris.
Today the brand based in Paris Touitou, APC (short for Production and Development Workshop), is known for its rigorous approach to clothing. They are militaristic in its functionality, but its roots in the concept of traditional elegance. Since its founding APC Touitou placed outside the currents of the world of fashion, but they are connoisseurs of fashion label to look for day day, for a total of $ 60 million in revenue last year, according to a representative. Next month Touitou open two new branches in Paris and Brussels APC. A business in San Francisco will open for a total of 67 worldwide in May.
"If you want to be fashionable at the end, is lost," says Touitou, 64, who dresses casually with young, use the sleeves Cotton rolled. "My design was not damaged by 30 years."
A cold afternoon in January in Paris, Touitou ends a late lunch on Sunday with his 11-year-old daughter, Lily, and his wife Judith, the artistic director of the PCA is monitored and the design team. The dining table in white marble, decorated with three glasses of glass lilies and purple orchids, including dissemination with apple pie, lychees and brioche in as much pain as the head of a calf dishes. "Work is not a taboo subject at home," says Touitou. "We do not say," We're going home, so we do not talk "Is creativity is everywhere, so I could talk to when it comes ..."
The family apartment is located in the 7th district, near the border of the 6th situated. The first for its aristocratic wealth and the second for the bohemian execution confluence is known Paris, APC also describes a one-stop-shop for classics like sweaters Breton and seasoned as shirt dresses Leopard basis. The business and the brand's flagship Studio are both a few blocks from Lady Street, and just around the corner of the kindergarten is founded by Touitous, Talleres called early childhood, or EPA
Touitou studied history at the Sorbonne, to become a teacher. After graduation, he spent a year in South America take new career goals in 1977 to Paris and back. "I understood that I take the train at 7:00 am and go to the suburbs and teach children who do not," he said. Instead, almost by accident, he began at Kenzo work, then was a young label the talk of Paris. "I met people who work at Kenzo," he said. "And I thought, what these guys, I want to connect them. It was modern, but is not supported if it were the restoration. I learned everything."
He stood up APC in 1987 as the brand of men their own money and investments seeds with friends. Under the medium brash 80s atmosphere, the clothes by their simple atmosphere, unisex. Touitou added a line for women next year. In the mid-90s, the company had a cult attracted following of the premium denim, which provides a good alternative to jeans pale blue Seinfeld. Each pair of solid fabric, Indigo home in Hiroshima, Japan (where the brand still buys his Denim). "I did not wake up one day and say:" Let's jeans are so steep, and itching and so dark they could sell a million, "he said." One can not have a good pair of jeans that could find on the market. Everything was washed with acid and the cup was terrible. I just went to the hand. "
APC instructions carefully expressionless suggested that her jeans are not washed, or for a party, rub on the beach and sand wash in the sea. The company also has a buyback program, supported in the jeans APC could be exchanged for a new pair for 50 percent off. then add the pair, treated (the exact method is a secret) is washed and resold.
For most of the existence of APC, which was aware of anonymity unit. "I wanted to be a successful team effort," says Touitou. If it had been a "name" in question guest contributors, like Kanye West. The producer and rapper in conjunction with APC inspired a collection fall of 2013 by the military surplus files Touitou, and again in 2014. Designer long APC leader Louis Wong, a "brand within a brand" time fashion line for men Louis W. ( Touitou has also created products with companies such care line TangoLeike Australia Aesop and dancing shoes Argentine officials.) spent Touitou the last mark and sold APC's Voices carry in outdoor sports line marks of the United States that he is "smart" tracksuit thinks pants.
APC also includes a label and a studio and was one of the first retailers music, candles, and other bric-a-brac licensed branded clothing for sale page. Touitou plays guitar and writes music (his last song "Samba de Merda" was written in response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in the last year) and says he. More interested in music mode Recently producer and musician Bill Laswell 63 hours a playlist for CPAs in order shops, including the music of Miles Davis and Glenn Gould. These efforts could be lost on most customers, but is confident that they appreciate subliminally Touitou. "You think people do not realize, but you can say it is not the quality," he said.
In the second part the identity of the APC by the stubborn approach Touitou merchandising featured. "Sometimes we get things on the market that do not necessarily not sell," he said. "You can do all the blockbusters of the time. It is very annoying for everyone."
Previously Touitou, owner flat APC is pleased with his slow and steady growth. "How you could multiply by 10," he said, snapping his fingers. ".. I know exactly what to do huge are to be comfortable that we are" on income, he said, "I did not add another zero."
After lunch Touitou around the apartment goes, he had a quiet room, which dominates plates of blond elm. Any resemblance APC is not surprising, since the space was designed by the architect, Laurent Deroo, Touitou, who worked with the last 15 years in the design of the store. exposed Parant common walls of the living room are framed for 1966 Poster Andy Warhol "Inevitably explosion Traversal plastic with the Velvet Underground and the hanging wall material by the younger sister of Jean in Tunisia (parts of your home merchandise online, The list of Tunisia sold, APC will soon) made. The Touitous lived here for 12 years but the master bedroom is a new addition, there was an adjoining office and bought, if the tenant moves. now it has been transformed into something that resembles a Scandinavian cabin driftwood in an apartment in Paris covered. sliding shutters made of wood, you can also on the window draw the chamber seal.
Touitou take a map of the Mediterranean and carried out on a table. Lily wrote paths colors on it with markers. For six years the Touitous traveled by sea on his boat, which is more like the modest Gilligan's Island a luxury - Yacht. Sometimes Touitou hooked his own jeans on the back and drive for hours. "Salt and sand can actually age the tissue in a gentle way," he said.
In these moments Touitou seems to feel more comfortable. "If someone asks me," Where are you? 'I say that I am from the French culture? "He said." I do not mean that I am French, because technically I'm not. "He and Judith recently bought a house in the small Italian island of Pantelleria, off the coast of Sicily, near Tunis." this is a width of Africa, this type of vegetation, "says Touitou." There are no beaches, and you have to go through the mountains to the sea. There is no is. "
Deroo supervised the renovation of the residence. He said: "John loves beautiful things, but the criteria is based on excess, but on the idea of balance." APC Each store will be adapted to your location. "I tend to think that every project is the past," said Deroo. "It is also the philosophy of John. We work on the basis of informal discussions." The Harajuku, Tokyo, branch wood looks like a mysterious cave, while business Silverlake in Los Angeles is a raw take on modern mid-century.
The relaxed approach Touitou concerns everyone who works with him, including designer Vanessa Seward, launched has a line of the same name with the support of Touitou in 2015. "Before I met John and Judith, I for casual wear was not very good," Seward, who was previously in Azzaro, where he was said to known glamorous evening dresses. "It was not my specialty, and in my personal life, I have always been something special. Thanks to them, are a little cooled." His line has inspired vintage pieces of denim and and even "now she's Touitou and opened two stores in Paris to follow a third this summer in Los Angeles.
"John loves to work, that is, happy to combine what you think of the world, with the thought of another person," says the artist and photographer Collier Schorr, the shot APC spring 2016 campaign, a male model with a megaphone with might should be a main or demonstrators policy; Ambiguity is intentional. Despite the sociability of Touitou provides Schorr that developed in solitude. "This is a man who has a boat and get into and out of the summer with his family. It is not a big boat. This is not a social adventure. It's time alone."
The next day Touitou is with his 26 - year old daughter, Haidee, Store tape APC wedged between Gucci and Chanel in the Rue Royale. If Touitou saw the room for the first time in 2011, I knew it was perfect. "It was fun, in addition to Chanel's just for the joke," he said. On the ground floor there is an underground space, regularly shaken by subway rumbling home CPA files, a mixture of pieces of own brand and vintage clothing used for inspiration.
iPhone Touitou, balanced in a glass on a table, plays a dark Rockabilly 1,972 Italian song, stores in the Loop. The fashion week for men is slightly more than a week, and he sings three songs at the party after the APC. Haydee, journalist, his daughter from his first marriage (his brother Peter, is a chef based in Jose Ignacio, Uruguay); He would meet every week with his father. The pair worked in the transmission, a book published next year, which is both a retrospective of the brand and Touitou personal visual diary and album.
He walked through the spiral pattern. One side has a photo of his mother in his youth and other childhood in Tunisia. Here is a charcoal drawing of irregular, abstract deposits and a blur of chaos, the father works Touitou, who served in the French Army during World War II, fighting shown in Normandy and Germany. There is also a 1945 picture of his father in Hitler's mountain cabin.
Touitou guidance through the doors, the neatly lining concrete space. The garments are sorted by colors and a wide green band consists mainly of military surplus parts. He pulls a heavy coat dress stiff leather from, that looks like a time capsule. He belonged to a pilot of the First World War. Touitou eliminates a delicate strand of tissue, yellowed by the time the bag. "That does not look like a handkerchief of a warrior, right?" I said. "I thought maybe it was the girl or girlfriend. You feel the past."
The APC team examined his coat and vegetable tanned leather recreated. The processing required by oranges and blueberries. The finished product is selling well, it was obviously very good Touitou.
"Okay, not to be famous and not a billionaire and his to be happy. If that's what it is, I'll be happy, but I know it's a bit idealistic." On the question of whether c is the way he sees his legacy, he said, "what do you mean I had an influence on jeans?"
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