In an interview with GQ, fashion designer Alexandre Matthiussi, who started his label AMI in 2011, discusses sustainable fashion and more.
When asked what advice he would give to any young fashion designers out there, Matthiussi said, "Following your instinct is the best thing you can do. I feel that good energy is key. There is no recipe to success: what works for me doesn’t work for anyone else, but the passion you put into your work, the trust and confidence you put in yourself, will make you make the right choices. In the meantime, if you make a mistake, that’s not a bad thing either, because you can learn from it. I have an optimistic way of thinking: whatever happens, it’s going to be OK."
When asked how he's implementing a strategy towards a sustainable fashion brand, Matthiussi said, "We’ve thought about sustainability for a long time now. We’ve been doing a lot in terms of production and fabrics. We’re still making a lot of clothes, but we have appointed a responsibility manager to help us choose the right fabrics and find the right way to produce things in terms of delivery and packaging. We’re yet to communicate on it, but we’re doing it for ourselves with the idea that one day we’ll be able to talk about it. I’m producing more than one million pieces per season now. It’s getting big. I have 200 people in my company."
When asked what in particular has been the secret to his success, Matthiussi said, "Asia has been an amazing market for us. We were already doing business there: we had opened two stores one year before and we had plans to open more. Also the logo is a bestseller. People connect with it. It’s very important to me, primarily because I don’t consider it a logo in the traditional sense. It’s a personal signature that I used to make as a child. I’d put an 'A' on the page with a heart on top of it. It was a little stamp I put on my sketches for my mother and father. It’s personal and I’m very happy that people connect to it, because it really embodies the spirit of the brand, which is love and friendship and kindness."
Information originally sourced from GQ.