Ideas from Massimo Osti

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I’m a writer and brand consultant mainly working within a sphere of the industry that is centred around technical and performance-oriented clothing and footwear. My evolution into this space was largely informed by the work of Massimo Osti and his projects like C.P. Company, Left Hand and Levis ICD+ which all heavily influenced the way I look at garment technology. The era of design at C.P. Company that I’ve chosen to highlight is one of Moreno Ferrari’s lesser-known conceptions that was birthed during his tenure from 1997 until 2001: the Transformables diffusion line, an offshoot of C.P. Company’s Spring/Summer 2000 collection. Walling, J. (2005). The Mullard/Philips Research Laboratories,Redhill. A Short History 1946-2002. Redhill,Surrey,UK: Ruscombe Litho and Digital Printing Ltd. p.234-235 At the heart of this cultural relevance is the community of long-standing CP Company fans, and particularly the casuals who kept the brand’s flame burning. “We celebrate the community, we want to keep them close, we are really part of a family,” Osti continues. “I am extremely grateful to these people — mainly from the UK — that kept the brand alive for so many years, they did it with love and passion, and without them we would have disappeared.” This group has been a focus of Osti’s plans for the brand over the last three years. “We really started from celebrating this community, and all the fans that kept the brand alive,” he adds. “We are also trying to do the same with a new generation, to get connected with them.” was an important year in Osti's career. He invented and presented Rubber Flax and Rubber Wool – linen and wool with a thin, rubber coating. [4] The rubber made the materials waterproof, improved their resistance and added a totally new look and feel to the garments. In the same year Osti experimented with brushed combed wool for the first time. Today all mills use this procedure for processing woolen textiles, the same process Osti invented in 1987. Phil Thornton, Casuals : Football, Fighting and Fashion : The Story of a Terrace Cult (Lytham: Lytham : Milo Books, 2003).

Loaning out pieces from his collection to stylists and directors alike, Archie has supplied outerwear to leading global musicians, athletes and other important figures.

Massimo Osti was born and raised in Bologna, Italy. He became a graphic designer and worked in the advertising business. His career in the fashion industry began in the early 1970s, when he designed a T-shirt collection featuring placed prints. He was the first to use new techniques like the four-color process and silkscreen which are used for producing T-shirt. Following the success of this first T-shirt collection, he accepted the offer to design a complete Men's collection and became an equity partner in the company he would name 'Chester Perry' (later renamed the 'C.P. Company'). [3] 1980s [ edit ] Sinclair, R. (2014). Textiles and Fashion: Materials,Design, and Technology . Amsterdam: Elsevier. p.367 I discovered that two different materials absorbed and reacted differently to the dye when dyed simultaneously, thereby creating interesting 'tone-on-tone' effects." This is the basis of garment dyeing, a process that revolutionized the entire industry at the time, both because of the unusual look it produced and because of the significant decrease in costs it represented. C.P. Company was founded in 1971 by Bolognese graphic designer Massimo Osti, the man considered by many as the ‘godfather of urban streetwear’. Initially, C.P. was a small apparel brand where Massimo would experiment with the application of cutting edge printing techniques he learned whilst working in the advertising industry onto t-shirts. At the time, placing prints using technologies like CMYK four-color processing and silkscreening was unheard of, so Osti’s small collection of graphic tees was wildly innovative earning him the opportunity to design a full menswear collection. On Massimo Osti’s watch, both date and sweep seconds hands have a red arrow, which is contrary to how it was intended from a functional perspective. Leonidas made more watches with a complication in the 1940s and 1950s, with steel and gold-plated cases varying in size. Osti’s watch has a diameter of about 35 mm, which was big at that time. These affordable vintage watches with some complications remain collectible. Leonidas was absorbed by Heuer in 1962. Here’s an article by my colleague Balasz Ferenczi about cool and affordable watches.

There may be a relevant point in examining Deleuze’s & Guattari’s use of a nomad as a metaphor for someone who is not fixed within a structure and is free to move at will. Especially given their popularity among writers like William Gibson. Much of the C.P. Company’s clothing is based on military uniforms and work suits. Massimo Osti was renowned for his signature style, calling it a ‘hybridization of archival military, work, and sportswear models’. Using the finest Italian fabrics, Massimo Osti’s fashion house soon became infamous for its signature style and look. There have been countless versions of this beloved design as it found its way from the Italian racing elite to the streets. It became one of Osti’s most timeless designs, aesthetically bold and functional; the conscious marriage of form and function were appealing to many style and substance-conscious subcultures. Leading to C.P Company being adopted and championed by multiple, diverse communities; from skaters to ravers, from mountain climbers to vintage clothing collectors and more.D.J. Tyler. (2013). Joining of wearable electronic components. (G. K. I Jones, Ed.) Joining Textiles:Principles and Applications, 507. doi:10.1533/9780857093967.4.507 Fifty years on, C.P. Company is still the pioneer of Italian sportswear". British GQ. 2021-03-09 . Retrieved 2023-08-09. The second material was Thermojoint, a lightweight cotton with a PVC base that resulted in a highly durable, 100% waterproof and nuclear radiation-resistant material. Osti’s developments around this time transcended the sportswear ideas he set out with and brought the idea of clothing as protection to the forefront. a b "Social". Slam Jam Socialism. Archived from the original on 1 December 2018 . Retrieved 1 December 2018.