Acne Vulgaris

[germinal]

[Syeknom]

Wow, didn't know they were such a profitable power house of a company. It's great that they're able to stay independent yet this successful.

Who here has some Acne stuff? Do you feel that the pieces are a good buy for the retail price? I've always mentally written them off as too much for too little but feeling the pieces up in-store tells a different story to seeing them online. Must take a closer look next week in antwerp.

[maj]

don't own any myself but from what i've seen in stores it has a very particular cut, everything works well with each other and the material on some of the tees seems cool. looks like one of those brands i could see people chucking money at if they like the design, offers something you really cant get anywhere else (for men at least). it's all quite loose and 'flowy' (for lack of better descriptors) on the top block which is different to most mens cuts, could say OL is similar when it comes to the sweaters/ cut of the tees but OL is infinitely more boring construction/material wise. this said i like the stuff but i know nothing about it more than how it looks /acts to me.

but to add to germs intro they have a vimeo with their collections on

[thomaspaine]

I've handled a few acne items and have never come away with being super impressed, especially considering the price. Jeans were nice I guess. I assumed that prices were more reasonable in the EU.

The brand reminds me of APC's cooler Swedish brother, but maybe I just think they're cooler because I've read more articles like the ones above about Acne than I have APC, and because you don't hear about them as often. The lookbook styling is more interesting for sure, but the stuff I see for sale is always super basic.

[Syeknom]

They've got some really online

[can-]

I think that bit about not explaining themselves really sums up the brand in a nice way. acne is really hard to pin down because (speaking solely of their clothing) they flirt with many different ideas, and they are very opaque. you go into the store which is a little maze with high walls that don't touch the ceiling and the carpeting looks like grass so you feel like you're in a Alice in wonderland courtyard. and they make silly lux sneakers, huge slouchy coats, fine tailoring, hoodies, pretty much everything. and there's an aesthetic (better to say 'direction') but it's not obvious-- you see how one person would wear all these things, but they only seem to relate tangentially. it's the opposite of a brand like acronym or jil sander, where you can use one or two words which will properly encompass almost everything they produce.

when you look at their gear you have to remember that it's a luxury brand and a lot of items are pretty clearly marked up for people who won't look at price tags. they have some nice slouchy unstructured overcoats this season, they are in a great wool and you probably won't find many other brands using the same quality and the same fit, but realistically the 1400$ tag is impossible to justify. OTOH I think the denim is worth RRP and many of their more unique items seem to be priced quite fairly. the Matteo / (now Vancouver) jacket sticks out-- it's a double down jacket with two full pieces that snap together, has a thickly padded down hood and generally looks like nothing I've ever seen and is sub1000.

their website is 404ing but they also have a double layer hoodie this season that's really impressive. it's a proper designer take on an American collegiate hoodie.

[germinal]

i like acne for various reasons.
They're clever at designing for the present. by this i mean they're very good at designing the clothes that people what to wear in that moment. their clothes, outside the basics, are not even remotely timeless and deliberately so. this isn't to say they cheaply follow trends, in fact they're more often the not the ones setting them. look through a tommy ton slideshow each season and you can bet one of the hype pieces will be acne, yet somehow they don't come across nearly as obnoxiously as kenzo et al. they burrow through that interstice between of-the-moment and cheap, lazy design and somehow come out the other side looking great.
Speaking of which, they're superb at presenting their product. their website and styling is impeccable, their shops are beautiful and their magazine, carefully chosen -collabs, other projects etc all feed into a very considered brand image. popular opinion says there's a sort of style over substance to their brand, a sort of flimsiness, and i think to a certain extent that's true: they're designers who happen to make clothes rather than tailors with good taste. however they also maintain extensive, well-priced, well-made basics and jeans lines; i have a shirt which must date back to 2008 that i still wear regularly, and has yet to show its age.
They're very swedish - and i think, even if they aren't responsible for codifying it, they typify that "swedish look" (you know the one) - but they are also a global brand.
Their product line (especially the women's) is extensive to a fault. like ben says it makes them difficult to pin down. they offer a total shopping experience and it would be easy to shop with them exclusively, for any occasion, and look cooler than your friends with minimal effort; i'm sure many people do this.
i'm certain they must understate in interviews their business savvy. they've repositioned themselves expertly over the years from denim brand to luxury label, yet they've kept their denim at the forefront. they're unique amongst their luxury competitors to offer a cool and desirable jeans line.

Anyway i made this thread because i find their positioning interesting. they seem on the cusp of everything. somewhere between a household name and fashion's little secret; somewhere between contemporary basics and luxury brand; somewhere between great design and throwaway trends

[ramseames]

I just have a pair of jeans from them. Really, they're quite nice and the construction seems good and they feel good to wear, but there was nothing really attracting me to them beyond "I need black denim, they make nice black denim, etc". Can't see myself buying much else really, don't see the value behind most of their pricepoints and even the really interesting stuff like some of their cooler prints or more complex outerwear (rex anorak and the vancouver look great) just isn't what I'd buy, the design always has a little bit of that boringness that lets them have such mass appeal.

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

A lot of my friends like acne, but I'm not that impressed. I think their design exceeds their production quality, and it's a bit of a shame. That said, they can be quite cool, and it's a shop I've sent friends to and told them they can buy any combination of items and wear them together stylishly.

[starfox64]

[Syeknom]

Stockholm Flagship



Tokyo





Antwerp one is tiny and cramped.



London one on Dover Street has a piano

[Syeknom]

[sknss]

The Acne store rue Froissart in Paris is pretty intimidating. There is no other indication from the street than a little ACNE plate - no clothes are displayed on the store front. You can only see the huge yellow sliding door.



Jeans are upstairs


There is another store near Palais Royal but I haven't been there (yet)

[bels]

I quite like Acne but can't bring myself to pay what they're asking for their basics. That said the pair of khakis I had from them was really nice. Elastane blend so nice and comfy, good button/zip/lining. Not super heavyweight. Great "fit" (hate saying something has great fit but it really did fit me nicely)

Still considering the parka though.



Like the way it's styled there with the long shirt (though can't see myself dressing like that)

Think comparisons to APC aren't really fair. It doesn't look to me that APC do any statement pieces, it's all homages and repros and basics wheras acne does some stuff that does look quite "Acne"

If I had infinicash I think I'd love to buy only their stuff.

[can-]

the Vancouver has a million great details, but it also has a fat strip of velcro that runs all across the back at the waist which was absent on the Matteo that puts me off it. reminds me of an old navy shirt i had in 4th grade that has bits of velcro on the front instead of buttons and velcro cuffs.

[teck]

first went into an acne store when i was really really up into the american workwear look (blue in green is across the way and to this day i can't go to one store without going to the other. the juxtaposition is jarring but its a great counterpoint. i know they didn't plan it that way but its cool as a consumer to be able to teleport from one aesthetic to another) and i was blown away by how clear their "direction" was. here was a place that offered up a perfectly contemporary look that wasn't backwards looking but wasn't avant garde. it was fantastical but promised wearability.

my gf is obsessed with it and she turned me onto the brand as a whole. theyve got some womenwear denim pieces which are like basic and statement at once. i think they're leather outwear is amazing and i think they get dinged by leather snobs because they're not some motorcycling-japanese-repro-custommade-jerkoff brand.

i really like their shoes but ben hates them.

a lot of the furniture in their soho store is furry, which adds to this very tactile sentiment throughout the experience. their clothes begs to be touched.

i have one drop shoulder t-shirt, which is prob my fave t-shirt. their on sale tees are the only thing i can bring myself to buy, the prices are a bit ludi.

[hooplah]

i want to post a fatass album of acne looks but there is no way to embed an imgur album on this forum, right?

acne fw 2012 is like my dream man

[sknss]

no but you can upload your images (not in an album) and then click on Generate multiple links and paste that

[hooplah]

there's like 63 pics, i don't want to overwhelm haha

[sknss]

i don't think anyone's going to be mad that you're contributing
put them under a spoiler if you don't want the page to take too long to load

[midvh]

i love acne, got a bunch of pieces from various seasons

bought a scarf (canada?) the other day, can honestly say that it was my best purchase in a while.

[hooplah]

there are like randomly awesome acne things, i bought this basic tank top off ebay and it is by far my favorite tank top i've ever owned, i wore it for like a week straight once hahaha

[bels]

[hooplah]

[Syeknom]

[can-]

hooplah, you can generate the links (ask imgur for linked bbcode and 'medium' or 'large thumbnail' and post it under the spoiler tag.

[ramseames]

Friend's parents bought him this from what I presume was the flagship store in Stockholm. Not something I'd wear but its a pretty nice piece.

[midvh]

[hooplah]

i recently learned that there is a syndrome that is the opposite of stockholm syndrome, called "lima syndrome," named after an incident in the japanese embassy in lima, peru where the captors began to take pity on the hostages and released them all

okay here are some of my favorite looks, there are about 70 pics under the spoiler cut

[bels]

I tried on the parka in 48. It fit OK and probably a 46 would be to small but it really is totally gigantic. Guess it cinches in with the Velcro but still.

Made me look like a heavily armoured grunt enemy with extra hit points.