Amiri Spring-Summer 2020

It’s the morning after Woodstock '69. The sun crosses the Catskill Mountains as the final embers of Jimi Hendrix’s torched Fender Strat float into the wind, yet the communal spirit created across those three defining days still burns.

This Spring Summer 2020 season represents a folkloric correspondence with Woodstock’s collective ideal, embracing a mindset of peace through togetherness, love and a deep connection to the heart of nature. We gather amongst a palette of earthy tones and pastel skies to pay homage to the original guitar heroes while igniting a new vanguard. At once louche and decadent, the Summer of Love liberation is echoed by relaxed tailoring that becomes contemporary stage outfits, where construction is modernized – slim to a kick flare ankle. Crochet techniques speak to artisanal craft, while embellished peace lilies flower across silk bombers.

From beatnik to bohemian, this sonic trip expands through rich suedes, velvets and desert hues. Custom-made jacquard roses trail across women’s longline coats, and silk knits are created using a unique double-weave to form an exquisite tie-dye effect. As sunset prints inform a sense of optimism and transpire alongside transcendent psychedelic florals and starry skies, large duffel bags are introduced as well as a range of leather shoulder options that resemble guitar bodies and snare drums – alluding to a nomadic lifestyle while feeding the mantra: always march to your own beat. Of particular prominence is a patchwork motif evoking Navajo blankets and symbolic of the global influences that energize the house codes. Love bead necklaces conjure Jim Morrison and romantic sheer caftans Janis Joplin, alongside original hand airbrushed imagery authorized in cooperation with the estate of Jimi Hendrix.

50 years on, Woodstock remains an abiding symbol of counterculture freedom, humility and camaraderie – values mirrored by the Amiri family, whose hard work and kinship form the backbone of the brand.

Amiri Autumn-Winter 2022

AMIRI’s singular journey cornerstones the Autumn-Winter 2022 collection, which marks Mike Amiri’s debut runway show in his home of Los Angeles – a proud moment for him and his team. 

Within this, Mike finds inspiration close to home, amongst the creative spirit of Los Angeles’ Arts District, and more specifically in his friendship with contemporary artist Wes Lang, whose studio neighbors AMIRI’s. Guided by the house’s tenet that artistic expression needs to be uninhibited and intuitive, the collection unites design house and art studio to explore a dialogue between the two contemporaries.

Mike and Wes have regularly visited each other’s studios without any collaborative context. However, as conversations between the duo naturally veered towards their respective crafts, the exchanging of ideas and aesthetics evolved organically into a truly cooperative and cross-discipline process that informs this season’s art direction.

The collection engages as much with the process as the final product. Inspired by watching Lang in his studio – the live connection between the gesture, the mark and the image; accumulating lines and matter, layering, re-approaching – Mike Amiri echoes this process, treating the garment as a mixed- media canvas and running on instinct; without boundaries.

Directed by this season’s narrative, accents of pink, blue and red are woven directly from selected Wes Lang artworks into the color palette, mixing the artist’s compositions with AMIRI’s rich, earthy signatures: deep hues of birch, green, demitasse brown, grey and black.

Guided by the designer's hand, archetypes evoke traditional menswear codes and formal fabrications distorted with the uniforms of modern America: references to leisure, workwear, and a distinctive West Coast personality. Deconstructed yet precise, silhouettes embody the textural freestyle of artistic creation: a loose, elongated shape is drawn with trademark kick-flare trousers, held by sculptural shoulders inspired by workwear fits, pieces layer, and overlap intuitively, creating a richness of composition similar to that of a painting.

Traditional tailoring is transformed through leisurewear sensibilities and utilitarian structures. A wool jumpsuit is an elevated yet effortless take on a tracksuit, outerwear is rendered in soft cashmere, shearling and faux fur, and silk shirting embodies a louche formality. Boxy jacket shapes draw workwear proportions while the artisanal warmth of the American quilt is translated as generous outerwear – the hems fringed to move with the breeze – that drape across the body with nomadic spirit.

Invited into Wes Lang’s archive, Mike saw the opportunity to not simply translate the artworks but evolve them through his own artistry – again, applying layers; both physically and figuratively to create new. Therefore, graphics are authentically developed from life-size artworks to become limited-edition compositions within a vibrant, creative conversation.

An exploration of textile through art – central to both Wes and Mike’s practices – hand-painting, abstract jacquard, patchwork, and fabrication washes produce unique finishes, as soft, refined fabrics – chiffon, silk, cashmere, faux fur – are given strength through mixed-media graphics. Lang’s synonymous Grim Reapers, folk totems and scattered text elements are brought to life as abstract intarsia knitwear, hand embroidery and impasto brushstrokes that animate surfaces – in this, garments are crafted as fine art. Artisanal techniques ensure artwork integrity, as does removing coat center-seams to create a smooth canvas. Hand-painted chiffon layers bonded onto wool and fine silk bear an ethereal trompe l'oeil effect and abstract geometries inspire checkerboard patterns, polka-dots and hand-woven stripes.

The craft language of American folk tradition is here embedded in hand-knit compositions: fuzzy mohair cast in this season’s shadow plaid finish; a crotched cashmere-bouclé blend; and an exquisite leather bomber cardigan debuted in supple tan. The interaction between maker and material forms singular expressions: loose and tight weaves are patchworked, yarn left uncut and loose, and authentic paint splatter represents the innate connection between an artist and their output.

Accessories and footwear elaborate on the season’s visual narrative. Leather crossbody bags are worn high, encouraging new silhouette lines, and selected works by Wes Lang are traced across a new slim tote silhouette, branded with this season's gallery tag. On foot, the house's signature Stadium and Court sneakers hit the runway in this season's tonal colorways and checkerboard motif alongside shearling accent combat boots – shearling is further explored as plush slippers. Crochet bucket hats and trucker caps are interchangeable as West Coast tropes

Both fascinated by notions of American folk, craft and artistry, this collection is a tale of two creators – two practices – harmonizing on parallel beats askew from the traditional route.

Amiri Autumn-Winter 2023

AMIRI’s Autumn-Winter 2023 collection is the equivalent of a soundtrack. A layered composition drawn through the memories and ambitions of CEO and Creative Director Mike Amiri. 

We drop the needle on an original composition written and performed live by legendary US producer DJ Premier and The Badder Band, transporting us to 90s New York: when the East Coast was setting the agenda – with Premier as its lead orchestrator. This is where the AW23 process began, with Mike in Premier’s Queens studio exchanging ideas and discovering archival cuts that link to the designer’s own formative years. 

The idea of production flows through the collection itself, as Mike and his team’s methodology replicates the notion of being in the recording studio: jamming, discovering new rhythms, new ways of playing with materials. On this beat, time-honoured tailoring fundamentals are cut with those of skate, studio and stage. Drawn loose, fluid with generous proportions, shapes slouch with languid downtown ease. An irreverent spirit finessed by sophisticated materials – cashmere, silk, shearling, faux fur, brushed wool – elevates garments to the most luxurious versions of themselves; cast in a palette of monochrome, silver grey, azure and ochre, accented with jolts of deep red and mint green replicating the city hues. 

Within AMIRI’s subverted classicism, suiting becomes an everyday signifier of comfort and elegance, rendered in supple leather or brushed wool, as Blazers are reimagined with the iconic properties of a varsity jacket and, in parallel, casual shapes are artfully matured and detailed. Untucked shirt hems peer beneath knitwear, and trademark wide, pleated pants pool more than ever – at times crafted in soft teddy fabric with oversized utility pockets. The optimism of 50s Americana weaves throughout. Prep uniforms mingle with Beat Generation prose, and newsboy hats are counterculture icons. This era is crucial: a time when American youth began to forge their own culture – transposed to today through a skate sensibility, the lineage of adolescent rebellion is unified.

Abstracting the familiar, techniques developed and established in-house distort fabric perception: Swarovski sequins are hand-embroidered and loose-ended to mimic tassels and the delicate texture of fur is imitated by uncut fine silk. Signature bandana prints are patchworked leather and suede, while patterns hand-painted in the studio are translated to shearling jackets, meticulously crafted from leftover fabric as expressive 3D brushstrokes. An extravagance in artisanal innovation embraces a sense of performance, drawing on Mike’s early days designing contemporary stagewear for world-renowned musicians. 

Within a meeting of craft and flow, Premier’s layered musical scores are mirrored by textured garments. An image of Premier at his decks is drawn as knit, while a patchwork varsity jacket is adorned with badges inspired by those from the archive. ‘Some artists make music some make history’ is written in appliqué across select pieces, paying ultimate homage. Like Premier's scratches, Mike Amiri’s ornate, craftful details are his signature. 

The Drum Machine bag is introduced as a nod to the favorite instrument amongst producers, alongside The Record in ode to vinyl. AMIRI-branded vinyl crates are carried by models, and on foot a new hi-top MA-1 style is debuted alongside faux fur iterations of the Malibu Boot. 

This season represents Mike Amiri in the studio: riffing, experimenting, hitting his rhythm.