“I’m a West-Canadian guy,” Luke Meier said on a Zoom about his spring 2023 lineup for OAMC. Since the pandemic, Meier’s roots have become a bigger factor in his work at the cult menswear label. “As I think about what I want to do with my time more, I want to get out into nature,” he continued. It’s his desire to “be around mountains, by the seaside” that kick-started the idea for this collection, and the “mountaineering feeling” that serves as its overarching story. “But I don’t ever want to do something that is straightforward,” he caveated.
Thus: sports silhouettes in Japanese wools, bungee-cord necklaces and belts, oversized cargo pockets, and open-stitch fuzzy mohair sweaters with the logo knitted in. In a clever move, rather than remaking utilitarian heavy hitters for the gorpcore crowd, Meier let what makes those items compelling inform his point of view. “It was interesting to explore pieces that had a bit of an echo of things that I remember being outerwear or functional pieces, but pushing them through a more sartorial and elegant approach in shape and fabrication,” he said.
Where that rang truest was in his tailoring, where the Japanese wool served as a stand-in for a neoprene or another tech fabric. With inserts of viscose under diagonal zippers and on sleeve caps, his exactingly cut vests, double breasted jackets, and coats took on a sportier, more fluid shape—still elegant, but with the coolness of a lived-in coat you throw on on the way out of the house. Elsewhere, crisp salt-washed cottons served as the base for more casual pieces like parkas and oversized tops. The deceptive rigidness of the textile—they’re actually quite light, Meier explained—allowed the silhouettes to hold their shape.
On the color front, Meier leaned into neutrals for the tailoring, but looked at spring-friendly hues for the rest. The lookbook opens with a tone-setting “hospital green,” which reappears later in a camo pattern. The print itself also appears in yellow, burnt sienna, dusty purple, and military brown colorways. They make for a convincing update to tried-and-true camo, though an edit of two or three versions would have sufficed. With acid-washed denims, paint-splatter prints, and a floral graphic in two versions Meier hoped to replicate nature’s effects on garments. “I wanted colors that felt as if they could have been outside and in the sun,” he said.
Revitalized suiting was a big story of the spring 2023 menswear collections. “A lot of people were overwhelmed by this graphic, streetwear-infused sweatshirt land that we’ve been going through for a while,” Meier said. “I think it’s more about how you make tailoring work in a daily life scenario. It’s nice to abandon the idea of ‘event’ or formality and make it more friendly—you can throw on a beautifully tailored jacket and still wear it with a relaxed trouser or with a t-shirt underneath.” That’s the right idea.
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