MILAN — The pandemic has compelled many designers to press pause and reset, confronted with turbulent financial prospects in addition to creativity challenges.
Diego Marquez, cofounder of hip modern model Au Jour Le Jour, which gained a major following within the mid-2010s, is taking the solo route with the launch of a brand new style mission for spring 2022 referred to as Diego-Go.
The model was established in tandem with enterprise companion Massimiliano Lanza, an internet designer and artwork director who had little to do with the style world however performed a pivotal function in convincing Marquez to embrace this enterprise, whereas Milan-based Anima Group helps the designer and Lanza set operations.
Marquez defined that the Au Jour Le Jour model is on maintain for the reason that final assortment launched for spring 2020 and time will inform if he and enterprise companion Mirko Fontana will ever resume the model they based in 2010.
While taking a step again from the style world, Marquez frolicked musing on his background and origins, in addition to on how he envisions a style model at present. “I felt like the fashion world dominated by marketing and digital principles no longer represented me,” stated Marquez.
During lockdown he additionally wrote a guide retracing his dad and mom’ journey from Chile to Italy within the ’70s, which had him “rediscover my origins, the culture embedded in it, which I had always considered to be not so cool.”
Diego-Go, spring 2022
Courtesy of Diego-Go
Based in Milan, Marquez introduced the colourful and blissful spirit of Latine tradition to the style merchandise he treasures essentially the most, each personally and professionally: A well-crafted shirt, which he described as a sensual garment for women and men.
Working a premium number of supplies together with Oxford cotton, poplin and viscose with a silky contact, shirts can be found in three suits, every minimize in short- and long-sleeved variations.
“There’s a raw and emotional aesthetic to the collection, drawn from the ‘barrio’ lifestyle,” defined Marquez, who teamed up with Spanish illustrator Ana Villegas to create the quirky characters — every bearing names drawn from the Latine lexicon, comparable to Lola, Pepe, Miguel, Ramona — that seem on the shirts nearly like they have been taken from a sketchbook, he stated. “They are the weirdos each family has,” Marquez enthused calling the group as “Familia Desastre.”
Celebrating the Mediterranean iconography, which can be a part of his background, different kinds characteristic prints of anthropomorphic crabs and lobsters, in addition to illustrated scenes of seaside city landscapes with pop-tinged homes and villas, the latter impressed by the island of Pantelleria, Italy.
Mindful of the necessity to give the model industrial viability, he additionally developed a spread of pajama-style shirts and shorts embellished with hand-drawn stripes or big initials, for “customers that are less loud fashion-wise,” he stated.
While conceived as a males’s model, Marquez sensed it may enchantment to girls, as nicely, de facto debuting the spring 2022 assortment as a genderless providing whereas strongly tailor-made for a exact goal: males of their 40s in search of a particular piece to put on. He confessed to himself being the epitome of the purchasers he expects to put on his Diego-Go creations.
Diego-Go, spring 2022
Courtesy of Diego-Go
Positioned within the superior modern market, the gathering retails at between 270 euros and 400 euros, and it’s wholesaling at Milan-based showroom Cicerchia. Marquez stated consumers’ responses have been encouraging thus far, particularly because the gross sales marketing campaign will stretch nicely into late September, to faucet into the ladies’s market.
Following an uncommon route, the designer confessed he’s additionally aiming to launch a tableware capsule bearing the identical graphics and illustrations seen on the garments, “capitalizing on this category which is booming in the aftermath of lockdowns,” he stated. Marquez can be dedicated to broaden into eyewear sooner or later.
“It’s a lifestyle brand which we can definitely have fun with,” he stated.
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