Clothing

Levi’s x Philips ICD+ – Massimo Osti’s most promising failed clothing line

When you think Massimo Osti, inevitably, you think Stone Island – his most successful clothing line, but the truth about Osti is that his genius stretched way beyond the badge, you’ve only got to look at his vast catalogue of highly innovative clothing brands that aren’t Stone Island – C.P. Company, Boneville & Left Hand just to name a few…

All of these brands specialised in creating hardwearing, often military-influenced, utilitarian garments, and in the early 2000s the world was changing – technology was starting to take over – Massimo noticed this and acknowledged that the future of workwear was uncertain, but what seemed certain was that it would incorporate electronics.

This is the story of how Massimo Osti came to design the initial collection of wearable electronics in partnership with Levi’s & Philips.

At the turn of the millennia electronic items were becoming commonplace in the average city slicker’s life, everyone wanted a piece of the newfound portable electronics action, and clothing companies were no different…

Desperate to incorporate electronics into their garments, brands rushed to compete for the title of creating the best wearable electronic garment – everyone was chucking heaps of cash into the research & development of the most futuristic silhouettes, pockets for portable devices & hidden hems for concealing cables.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that the wearable electronic garment never really caught on, ultimately everyone just ran their headphone cable up the inside of their T-shirt and went about their day.

But what looking back at the wearable electronic garment craze does offer is some of the craziest design inspiration of the century – not least of the brands at the forefront of this movement was Levi’s, who would come to partner with Philips to produce a Wearable Electronics Program named ICD+, headed by Massimo Osti.

To fully understand what birthed the clothing line you’ve got to cast your mind back to the ’90s…

Electronic giant, Philips, was just beginning to see the widespread use of their technology in people’s day-to-day lives, sales were skyrocketing for their portable audio devices, and Philips were keen to offer the influx of everyday tech users more considered products, they therefore decided to conduct some research into what they coined ‘Wearable Electronics.’

In 1997, Philips founded a program called Wearables which sought to develop the highest-spec garments that could be used in conjunction with their electronics – a team of super tech and engineering boffins were herded toward a laboratory in Redhill in an attempt to corner the new and exciting market for wearable electronics.

After what we can only imagine was several years of incredibly nerdy and conceptual conversations, Philip’s team of super boffins had created a collection of clothing that was designed for what they imagined day-to-day consumers would look like in the fast-approaching 2000s – the project was titled ‘New Nomads.’

The New Nomads campaign explored wearable electronics through the medium of sportswear, outerwear, casual wear and even formal wear – the whole thing was incredibly ahead of its time and to the average person living in the late ’90s, a glimpse into what the future of clothing would most likely look like.

In 1999, Philips presented the New Nomads program to clothing brands at a Philips’ Concern Research Exhibition, and as soon as popular labels of the time managed to get a sniff of what Philips had been up to, they were desperate to get involved.

The first to the pot was Levi Strauss, who immediately initiated talks with Philips and came to an agreement in which they would work with them to produce a Levi’s clothing line that built on the New Nomads research.

Although Levi’s knew they wanted to be the top brand in the wearable electronics market, they didn’t know who they wanted at the helm of their new endeavour. Names were bounced around in conversations about head designers until one stuck – Massimo Osti.

Levi’s had been working with Osti throughout the 90s, and in 1998 he designed a collection for Levi’s offshoot, Dockers, titled ‘Equipment for Legs’ which featured trousers constructed of high-tech fabrics such as GORE-TEX that utilized hidden pockets, configured to hold specific kinds of electronic devices.

Shortly after this, Osti designed a futuristic workwear range for Levi’s called ICD -Industrial Clothing Division. Impressed with Massimo’s efforts, Levi’s asked him to head their new line with Phillips titled ICD+.

One can only assume that a 60-something-year-old man born in Bologna would’ve been a little bit apprehensive about designing a range of clothing centred entirely around new-fangled electronic devices, but Osti rose to the challenge. After all, it was still in his favoured realm of workwear, but just under a very different and very futuristic lens.

Philips’ were very prescriptive to Osti about what they wanted from ICD+ and referenced their New Nomads project, stating,

‘We identified a group we called ‘nomads’ who are constantly on the move, always in taxis or airports and needing to be wired

To accommodate for these different kinds of nomads, Osti set about designing four different jackets that would all use Philips’ PAN system, an infrastructure network for all the electronic devices. All four jackets would come with a Philips MP3 player, a voice-activated mobile phone, a set of headphones and a microphone which were all housed in specialised pockets.

The four jackets designed by Osti were set out in the ICD+ users manual as…

  • Beetle: A water-repellent but breathable & durable shell for day-to-day protection in the city.
  • Mooring: A versatile commuter garment, the interior vest holds the electronics while the outer shell provides protection from the elements.
  • Producer: A gilet aimed at the needs of those working in the film and music industry.
  • TRC Gilet: A simpler body warmer than the Producer, the TRC holds items without needing a multitude of pockets.

Although the jackets had far more than ample storage for electronic devices, they weren’t just vessels to hold the technology but in fact, acted as their own intermediary between the Philips equipment.

If you were listening to music and received a phone call, the remote control would automatically switch from the MP3 player to the phone, and then once it was finished, it would switch back.

Pretty much like any smartphone does now, but without needing a wildly expensive jacket to do it.

Osti’s famed design language was communicated in each of the pieces as he utilized high-tech fabrics and plastic appliques similar to how he did for C.P. Company and Stone Island – think lots of 3D pockets, hidden zips & massive hoods.

He had taken Philips’s over-complicated silhouettes from the Wearables range, simplified them and actually made them wearable.

Everything was set to be a ground-breaking success…

Levi’s & Philips were enthusiastic about Osti’s work being commercial, but due to the costs associated with producing the garments, they limited the initial run of ICD+ to 800 pieces – as it turned out, the brands would even struggle to shift these.

The collection was met with great popularity at its first press release in which journalists could interact with the models and try the clothing for themselves – it was being heralded by media outlets as the future of fashion, but when the collection actually launched, it failed to land with the everyday consumer.

Prices for jackets in the ICD+ range varied from £600 – £900 – you’d have had to be flying business class during the week rather than getting the underground to be able to afford any of it. The collection was incredibly talked about, but very few people actually pulled the trigger on purchasing a piece.

The initial launch did prove successful enough that Levi’s asked Osti & Philips to do a SS2001instalment of ICD+, this part of the story remains a bit of a mystery but what we do know is that Osti designed at least two new jackets for the collection:

  • The Storage Jacket – A packable jacket inspired by couriers, designed to be worn like a bag over the shoulder when not in use. Pockets are on the outside to allow access to the electronic components even when the jacket is not worn.
  • Cagoon Jacket – Similar to the TRC Gilet except that it contains a packable jacket in a flat back panel, the electronic components can then be accessed once the garment is unfolded.

Sadly the SS2001 collection was met with even worse sales than the year before, people simply couldn’t afford the clothing, and the ones that could were sick of removing a million different wires whenever they wanted to wash their jacket.

Levi’s opted to discontinue ICD+ – perhaps the future of outerwear wasn’t wearable technology after all.

Many other brands since ICD+ tried their hand at venturing into the wearable electronics market, but none did it as intriguingly as Levi’s, and that was in no coincidence to Massimo Osti’s involvement.

Ultimately ICD+ would end up being one of the last projects Massimo Osti was involved in before his death in 2005, and while the project proved to be a failure, it once again demonstrated his allegiance to functional garments.

Osti saw the potential in wearable electronics and sensibly thought they’d be the future of workwear, he said when ICD+ was first conceived that he wanted it to be as ubiquitous as the mobile phone.

But the truth of the matter couldn’t be further from Osti’s desires, very few people ever owned ICD+ but we’d imagine the ones that did, probably wish they’d held onto it – the few pieces that can be found online are listed anywhere between £1000 – £2500.

One of the few people that owned one of the jackets actually leaned over my shoulder as I’ve been writing this and said,

‘I had one of them jackets, it was the heaviest coat ever, and there was loads of wires everywhere in it as well – it was a bit rubbish.’

So take it from Mark, we should all be lucky that the ICD+ project failed, otherwise, maybe we’d all be wandering around in a tangle of wires, unable to ever escape work calls as our jacket doesn’t have the programming to ignore them.

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