The duo’s collaboration sees the two Italian’s meet in the middle of outdoor and outrageous.
Fiorucci’s influence on fashion and the wider world of art, especially throughout the late ’70s and ’80s, can’t be understated. Fiorucci was founded in Italy in 1967 but is best known for its influence overseas, acting as a cultural ambassador for the globalisation of fashion.
When Fiorucci opened its flagship store in New York, it changed the fashion scape at a time when the city was undergoing its own mini, drug-fueled, culturally-charged renaissance. The New York store became known as the “Daytime Studio 54”, the reference being to the highly selective, highly desirable nightclub that attracted the likes of Madonna, Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, Calvin Klein, Karl Lagerfield, every single Jagger, and anyone who was anyone from star-studded aristocratic socialities to heroin-soaked-and-minted-musicians. In short: the Fiorucci store was a cultural hub.
It wasn’t just in the states that Fiorucci made traction, either. Mark Leckey’s 1999 Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore summarises the influence of the brand on the UK and Europe, and of the power of fashion in general. In a 2008 Guardian interview, Leckey points out how: “something as trite and throwaway and exploitative as a jeans manufacturer can be taken by a group of people and made into something totemic, and powerful, and life-affirming.”
The 1999 film features Northern Soul footage from the ‘70’s, up to rave footage from the early 90’s, and everything in between. In short: Fiorucci’s association with culture, with parties, and with humbling yet affirmative hedonism, can’t be removed.
Daniel Fletcher, the Menswear Artistic Director at Fiorucci, knows all of this. This is why Fiorucci’s latest collaboration with Napapijri builds on those rave and disco influences by taking Napapijri’s technical know-how and filling it with flare.
A standout item from the collaboration is the Northfarer jacket, Napapijri’s trademark smock, which now features an all-over Fiorucci customised print. Other elements include the usage of Fiorucci’s twin cherubs on a range of jeans, hats, hoodies, biker shorts, crop tops and other pieces, with a standout blue, pink and orange palette.
The collection is available from Napapijri’s site.
