ESQ&A: Mike Amiri

The founder and creative director behind his eponymous Los Angeles label talks building an authentic brand, fashioning a new masculinity and the growth of ‘luxury streetwear’.

- Norman Tan

ESQ: Mike, congratulations on your autumn/winter 2020 collection. It’s such an elevated Amiri. But how did you go from designing custom pieces for Axl Rose and musicians in Los Angeles to starting your own brand?

MIKE AMIRI: I think the whole spirit behind designing for rock stars and icons is you want them to feel like the hero. You want them to look as people imagine and as people dream. After doing that for so long, I wanted to create my own language that can adapt to the street. Where people could wear these things offstage and it would have enough balance to be wearable, but still have enough significance to be special.

ESQ: So, when you design for Amiri, who is the man that you have in mind?

MIKE AMIRI: It’s always something I would wear. Or sometimes it’s even a bit more of an exaggerated version of what I would wear. There are elements of that men are more willing to take now. I like to give something to men who are just starting out to really play with fashion and find their own identity and individuality. Because that’s become a big part of current fashion—menswear finding its own voice.

ESQ: There are a lot of options in the market when it comes to fashion and streetwear. How do you demarcate your brand so it’s top of mind when someone wants to buy a great pair of jeans or a leather jacket?

MIKE AMIRI: When you start out making clothing for the stage, you want the pieces to stand out. You want them to have the best fabrication so they shine just right, you want the shoulders to look perfect so the silhouette looks heroic, you want every detail to pop. But you also want it to be different enough in certain ways, where it has little hints of flavour and risk that make it a bit more appealing.