A.P.C. Pre-Fall 2023 Celebrates Auto Racing Through the Sport's Alluring Archives

For Pre-Fall 2023, French clothing label A.P.C. centers its focus on auto racing — specifically, the sport’s audiences, mechanics and many of its legendary figures. For the collection’s campaign, photographed by Robin Galiegue, with Suzanne Koller as art director and stylist, the brand spotlights its bourgeois sportswear wardrobe through the stylistic lens of competitive driving’s allure.

Among its sartorial sources, the archives from the Le Mans race’s 50th anniversary in 1973 serve as a starting point, for their then-modern reinterpretations of era-defining silhouettes, including fitted, voluminous tops and loose-fitting bottoms with mid-rise waists. Elsewhere, the collection lauds Liane Engeman, a Dutch pilot born in the 1940s, drawing inspiration from her mechanic team’s wardrobe. There, A.P.C. reenvisioned the squad’s large diagonal stripes on women’s and men’s shirts.

Sweatshirts, meanwhile, enter the graphic universe of the R5, a legendary French racecar, and jackets mimic the short and square constructions of those oftentimes worn by racers, off the track. Bombers don logo work galvanized by vintage sponsor embroidery, offering a contrast to the line’s selection of elevated, rounded and loose sportswear. Both looks, while different, represent the style of Formula 1 legend, Ayrton Senna.

Peruse A.P.C.’s Pre-Fall 2023 campaign in the gallery above.

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