MILAN — The phrase “create” stands out on Giotto Calendoli’s proper hand among the many many tattoos protecting his physique, talking volumes about his persona and the creative urge that drives his actions.
Eloquent in each his phrases and hand gestures, the Italian social media character has gained consideration — and followers — for a number of years because of his sense of fashion and excessive-profile endorsements — see Louis Vuitton, Dior and Acne — earlier than he determined to channel his artistic impulse into craftsmanship.
Eight years in the past he started to toy with hat designs, step by step including different classes. He bolstered the mission with additional experiments with supplies, textures and methods below the attire and equipment model Handle With Freedom, which he formally launched in 2019 and retooled final yr in the course of the pandemic.
“It all started from my own need to find garments that could really represent me,” mentioned Calendoli. “I wasn’t looking for a trend but rather for a soul. Fashion is already saturated, nobody is inventing anything new. I used to go to my grandmother’s and fish items from my grandfather’s wardrobe. Each time I took a piece, my grandma told me to handle it with care, but for me that also translated into freedom.”
One of the needs of Calendoli’s label is to breathe a second life into pre-used clothes and deadstock textiles, elevating the unisex items with washing methods, colourful embroideries and patches, with the objective of sparking a extra acutely aware method to trend.
Apparel objects vary from repurposed parkas, reversible bomber jackets and quilted choices — all revamped with illustrations, patches in contrasting materials and daring stitches — to vests crafted from previous parachutes as properly as deconstructed fits, sweaters and shirts that includes ironic quotes rendered in the model’s signature block letters, that are reminiscent of a kid’s handwriting.
This playful fashion, which informs all graphics, helped Calendoli ship his message and likewise make his designs recognizable.
Not coincidentally, “the most complicated skill is to be simple,” which serves not solely as a mantra for the founder but in addition as one of many quotes on a sequence of white T-shirts grouped below the gathering “Mom’s Drop,” as Calendoli’s mom embroiders them herself.
As for Calendoli, he’s nonetheless hands-on in the creation of hats, which stay an enormous a part of his model’s providing. Encompassing fedora types, bucket hats, beanies and baseball caps, the items hail from Italy’s Marche area — which specializes in the sector — earlier than being completed off with recovered supplies collected throughout Calendoli’s journeys world wide, as properly as stitched by the founder in his Milanese atelier, a tiny greenhouse nestled in the courtyard of an Italian palazzo. Calendoli additionally places his private contact on the packaging by hand-portray the hat containers.
Giotto Calendoli at his atelier in Milan.
Courtesy of Handle With Freedom
“I’m not a designer nor an artist, I just have some ideas and I want to realize them,” Calendoli mentioned, underscoring that he sees the model extra as a field containing a number of artistic expressions and experiments.
For one, he began to work with ceramics and in the course of the particular version of Milan Design Week final September, he launched a house assortment that features cups, pillows and blankets displaying the playful codes of the model.
With costs starting from 50 euros to 400 euros for hats; 70 euros for T-shirts, and as much as round 600 euros for jackets, the model is obtainable at choose shops in Italy, such as Biffi and Been, as properly as in France, Japan and Mexico.
Handle With Freedom’s house assortment.
Courtesy of Handle With Freedom
Earlier this yr the label hosted a trunk present in Mexico in partnership with the Kabe idea retailer in Tulum, displaying a particular capsule assortment of hand-embroidered separates and straw hats developed with native artisans.
“We temporarily moved there for a month and it was an interesting experience to research fabrics, raw materials as well as new techniques,” recalled Calendoli, who’s planning to duplicate the mission in Japan, which is among the many model’s finest markets.
“Especially through our own e-commerce, we receive orders mainly from New Zealand, the U.S. and Japan,” mentioned Calendoli, underscoring that the model and its idea resonate extra with a world viewers. “Usually Italians are more bounded by labels and logos, while customers abroad are driven by their own personality and taste.”
Calendoli’s primarily worldwide fan base, gained throughout his running a blog heyday, might need performed a task, too, however the founder is resolute about sustaining Handle With Freedom’s separate id. As a outcome, and conversely to fellow influencers on an identical journey of launching their very own manufacturers, he didn’t need to put his identify on the label and financial institution on his fame, however moderately go for “something everyone can identify with.”
The X-formed pink stitching that marks all items in the gathering additional reinforces this. “It’s like a signature, but I wanted it to be a solid, timeless symbol rather than a name. In this way, there can be anyone behind it,” he mentioned.
Giotto Calendoli in his atelier in Milan.
Courtesy of Handle With Freedom
Calendoli delved into allegories and geometric indicators when explaining the final word mission he has for the model. In referencing the famend Florentine painter and architect Giotto, he mentioned that his objective is “to design my own perfect circle, one that connects people. That’s my idea for the future.”
To ensure, human connection and neighborhood-constructing affect completely different elements of his enterprise. For one, when Calendoli first scouted the area for his atelier, he launched a contest on Instagram to encourage skills to ship concepts to revamp the placement. As outcome, he collaborated with architect Alfredo Di Mauro and plant artist Satoshi Kawamoto, selling their work on his social media channels.
While comparable calls to motion are seasonally launched on each the model’s account and his private Instagram profile — which counts greater than 130,000 followers — Calendoli additionally hosts workshops in his atelier for younger skills to enhance their expertise, since “in a city like Milan there are no places where people can meet spontaneously to share a creative experience.”
Most just lately, he upped the ante to his social dedication with a mission involving seven inmates of the feminine jail of Pozzuoli, an hour’s drive from his hometown Naples.
For that mission, he handed a clean piece of paper to the ladies and requested them to precise what freedom meant to them. The phrases and drawings they shared had been then changed into ornamental motifs for a capsule assortment of bandanas and purchasing luggage crafted with deadstock textiles hailing from the jail. All proceeds from the web sale of the items, which retail between 30 euros to 55 euros, might be destined for the inmates.
Handle With Freedom’s bandana types developed by feminine inmates.
Courtesy of Handle With Freedom
“Everyone thought that the pandemic would make us better but it was quite the opposite, individualism prevailed. Yet I still strongly believe in working together, as well as in second chances,” concluded Calendoli, emphasizing that the expertise enabled inmates to be taught new expertise, earn advantages for good conduct as properly as begin a journey for future reintegration into society.
