Arnys

Parisian city-wear for the landed nobility.

Button details from the defunct Parisian clothing house Arnys.

That wonderful logo — clearly a rendition of Gainsborough’s Mr Andrews — is in many ways reflective of the Arnys house style.  This particularly garment is reminiscent of a certain style of country riding jacket that might have been worn by Ancien Régime nobility — the type that Mr Andrews would have found should he cross the Channel to visit the country estate of his French equivalent. Of course, in terms of jackets, Arnys are more well-known for the infamous Forestiere. This, as Arnys fans will know well, was based on the loose-fitting Solonge-style jacket worn by Gaston Modot as gamekeeper Edouard Schumacher in Jean Renior’s La Règle du Jeu. Whilst very different from my own, the style still – like many Arnys designs – has very obvious country estate roots – albeit executed with the kind of noticeable flair and rich detailing that would be at home on the pages of Joris-Karl Huysmans.  Aside from the quality of the products that Arnys made, one the things that I love about house is that, over time — perhaps because of little more than the location of its store — it has taken on close associations French cultural and intellectual elite of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Here it become one of those wonderful contradictions: country-wear for perhaps the most metropolitan of groups. In this, the Forestiere is in many ways revealed as the French equivalent of the English Barbour jacket – worn by British gamekeepers, poachers and British Royalty in the same relaxed way. Worn, just as comfortably too, by the Belgravia resident, who might be Mr Andrews descendent, as he steps out of his stucco-fronted Chester Square home to walk his Labrador Retriever.