ART

PALM ANGELS FW17/18 BY FRANCESCO RAGAZZI

By Crash redaction

At 31 years old, Francesco Ragazzi is first and foremost a passionate and talented photographer.

Thanks to his modern vision, he has worked continually in the fashion industry for the last ten years, holding the title of Art Director at Italian brand Moncler.

The starting point: a book of photographs he took in Venice Beach in 2014, called Palm Angels, a beautiful collection of black and white images.

Regularly traveling to LA, he was watching skaters in Venice and decided to dedicate a collection to their style. Ragazzi’s skate culture aesthetic started to gain notoriety thanks to this photo book, sold by the most important shops like Colette.

His debut collections – n°1 was Fall/Winter 2015 – were ready-to-wear collections for men, or at least one that is worn by men, since Ragazzi always underlines his concept of “no gender dressing.”

For the FW 17-18 collection, the brand goes a bit more gender specific by introducing seven women’s looks, which can be considered as a capsule womenswear line within the collection. However, those seven looks remain very masculine and could very easily be worn by men, too, which further underscores Ragazzi’s concept of having “a unisex collection.”

Once again for this collection, Ragazzi mixes his Italian sartorial background with laidback vibes, proposing pieces like tracksuits, hoodies, backpacks, T-shirts, caps, polo shirts, and leather jackets.

Redefining luxury, he goes even further by distributing merchandise free of charge during Milan Fashion Week from trucks placed in strategic points of the city (for example: in front of Prada’s runway show, an initiative with the exclusive support of Vogue Hommes, GQ Style, and Highsnobiety).

This new initiative offered an opportunity to bring a new energy to the city and the fashion week system in general. Francesco Ragazzi, as very well described by BoF, did “a wonderful job in bringing a bit of underground energy to an otherwise bourgeois Milan. The seeds of his vision are clear … he has guts and taste, all merging with the skills of a punchy storyteller.”