In a world where brand tie-ups are commonplace, what makes just one of them become so heart-thumpingly, stop-you-in-your-tracks, retina-burningly irresistible that you have just to find out more? Try this: The coming together of French minimal style gurus A.P.C. with US workwear legend Carhartt. It's like the New Wave coming together with the Western, the modernist with the traditionalist, the . Which is to say you can imagine it, but only just. And so when it actually happens, you just have to look closer.

For A.P.C. founder Jean Touitou it must have been pretty much the ultimate challenge: take on a legendary label and redesign it by distilling it down to its core principles. That's what A.P.C. has done with the well-established Western workwear wonder that is Carhartt.

Certainly Touitou - who founded his Paris brand in 1986, as opposed to Carhartt's start date of 1889 - really went into this project with his eyes open and an aim was to 'out-Carhartt Carhartt'. That means workwear taken to its ultimate distillation. That's something A.P.C. already does and the Paris brand has gained real loyalty for its ability to purify menswear to its simplest ingredients. In terms of this tie-up, the result is not just good, it's effective. So effective in fact that this seemingly

transient tryst has already been extended into its third season, and that's what you see here.

And as two of the 'brainiest' brands in menswear it's hardly surprising that the duo has managed to create a distinctive look, and as it heads into third take, the creative output is only deepening. So what started as a pretty minimal capsule is now a line-up of T-shirts, shirts, blazers, trousersand outerwear all with a consistently stylish minimalism to it. Among the highlights are the ticking stripe captain blazer, the simple pocket-detail T-shirts and the covetable tan Detroit Revisited jacket, in which you can really see the Western worker heritage get a Gallic remix. And if you doubt the effectiveness of the tie-up then look at the label, where Carhartt's signature logo C combined with the A.P.C. initials for a fused logo, making the pieces of the brand name. Neat.

The collection combines the virtues of both brands, with Carhartt's European arm offering the workwear brand's contribution. That means that the original fit of its boxy workwear is translated into a much more considered European aesthetic. That does not mean tight and body forming, just something a bit more like you would expect from tailored casualwear. Check it out.