Thomas Mars: “They’re the complete opposite of the shirts I’d see at the Versailles Mall growing up - they fit you perfectly, and you can make them your own. Her grandfather used to own the company - it’s this place that’s been around for something like 180 years…”Ī bespoke Charvet shirt, based on Thomas’s Acne joint, with a “T” embroidered on the front of the placket and the year of fabrication on the versoīlackbird Spyplane: Legendary Parisian bespoke shirt-makers ! People love Charvet… How do you explain the appeal? Thomas Mars: “It’s Anne-Marie Colban, of Charvet. Thomas Mars: “No, we all dress the same off stage - it’s not a different look.”īlackbird Spyplane: I think a lot of readers might envy that - I’m always impressed when someone figures out the one singular fit that just works, day in, day out … Who’s the tailor you mentioned who copies shirts for you? This shirt felt like it fit into that context - including the parrot.”īlackbird Spyplane: Do you stay in “uniform” mindset when you’re not on tour, or is that yr chance to switch it up with the vetements ?
Early on, on Phoenix’s first record, we played all these weird Italian TV shows, where we’d go on after a guy with a parrot and stuffed animals, and after us it was these Veline girls, which is the term for showgirls on, like, Rai 1 - we were basically in the middle of this Berlusconi nightmare, and when we were thinking about things like the album art and stage design for Ti Amo, those memories came back. Thomas Mars: “I got together with Pierpaolo Piccioli at Valentino, and he was super open to doing anything. The boots are taped up, there’s an Acne shirt I wore for so many shows that I had to staple one of the button holes together, just so it wouldn’t rip open…”īlackbird Spyplane: At the start of the Ti Amo tour U got a little nuttier, wearing these custom Valentino shirts you sent me, with tropical prints…
Thomas Mars: “What they have in common is that even though I care about them, they’re not precious - they’re messed up, they’re used. I’m not that sentimental about a lot of things, but last year I was in Northern California during the wildfires and a police squad came to our house and said, ‘You have 5 minutes to evacuate,’ so I had to confront this question of, ‘What do I take and what do I leave behind?’ And, along with some more essential stuff, I wound up taking a pair of boots and my two favorite shirts.” Thomas Mars: “I don’t think it was 60! But yeah, I hesitated today in deciding between talking about shirts or boots, because those really are the two things I can’t get rid of. Blackbird Spyplane: My two chief memories from when we first met is you fusing yr boots to yr legs with gaffer’s tape so fans wouldn’t tug them off when you crowd-surfed, and you telling me that you hired a tailor in Paris to make you ~60 versions of the same blue shirt…