The trio behind Pièce d’Anarchive—Virginie Muys and sisters Déborah and Priscilla Royer—wanted to shake things up when it came to basic knitwear. (The name is a combination of “anarchy” and “archive.”) The women persuaded one of France’s last remaining knit factories—which works with many of the French luxury houses—to take on their production. Priscilla, who did a stint at Vivienne Westwood’s Red Label, dug into her personal archives for the collection’s spring debut, incorporating up to four different stitches in one item. “This is very tricky to develop because the same yarn reacts differently to each stitch,” she explains. Their design influences were diverse—a puckered jacquard cardigan (top), which doubles as a jacket, was inspired by African tribal scarification; a grasslike tube skirt (bottom) suggests the headdresses of the flower-men tribe in Yemen and Saudi Arabia; and short-shorts mix old-fashioned French knits with psychedelic checks.
