Palm Angels (Q3542)
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Palm Angels is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Palm Angels |
Palm Angels is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Was Francesco Ragazzi’s decision to hold Palm Angels’s first runway show in Paris on Rue Cambon—spiritual home of Paris’s grandest house—a statement of intent? “Of course it was!” he said immediately after the show. “To be in Paris, on Cambon, this is the heart of the capital of fashion. It’s a statement for sure. We want to stimulate change.”The brand, first launched as a book at the much-missed Colette in 2014, also made its ready-to-wear debut here, back in January 2016: “Palm Angels might become a thing,” wrote Vogue Runway of that presentation. What was then Ragazzi’s side-hustle (his day job was at Moncler) has indeed since become a thing: alongside Off-White, it is the upstart Milan conglomerate New Guards’s biggest and most rapidly-growing property.That first collection contained a lot of blissed out dadcore streetwear, including jumbo cords with evening dress style cavalry side-stripes. It was satisfying to see those side-stripes endure six years on, but this time on sharp suiting whose jackets contained believably wearable integrated hoodies. That menswear feint encapsulated a collection that worked with great focus to present a detached curatorial vision of French bourgeois luxury codes, but also simultaneously to hint at a future assimilation of those codes with the wider lexicon of dressing—streetwear—of which Palm Angels has become so emblematic: this was outsider luxury. At the preview, Ragazzi discussed how the 1960s collision between Rive Droite and Rive Gauche style—thanks chiefly to Yves Saint Laurent—had reenergized Paris fashion. “I think the world of streetwear now is like the Rive Gauche then, and the world of luxury fashion now is like the Rive Droite then: combine them in the right way and we can stimulate a fresh evolution in the language of fashion.”For this first runway-proper Parisian chapter for the house, Ragazzi took an approach to his new show-home that was extremely Italian: It paid respect. Sneakers are a huge part of Palm Angels’s business, but there were no sneakers here. Instead we saw gommino puckered loafers made in collaboration with Tod’s and some house-produced leather soled versions too. Currently, 80 per cent of revenues are generated by menswear. While there was for sure menswear here, the emphasis, in this fashion week, was on the womenswear.
In that womenswear, the devil was often in the detail: pants that initially seemed sleek, dark blue, and just a little formally dull were on closer inspection stamped with the fossilized skeleton of workwear in their riveting and double-fronted knee patches. A sheer top that seemed a clear homage to late ’60s Saint Laurent was overlaid with a golden palm tree silhouette. The hoods on those hoodies and many other pieces besides were patterned with golden script advertising the address—217 Rue Saint-Honoré, FYI—of the new Palm Angels store that will open here soon.Respect was duly paid, but the pieces that were most worth watching were those that incorporated the maverick spirit of Cali-skate—a bit grunge, too—that first fixated Ragazzi when he started Palm as a photographic project in 2011. The juicily colored oversized shearlings, the metal treated denims, the cleverly bling jewelry and accessories that chimed against the sleekly ’70s brass colored hardware on pockets, plus the safety-pin bombers were all pieces you could imagine wearing with disruptively positive effect in a conventionally “chic” scenario. This was a fine debut in the format and city that Ragazzi has long planned to call Palm Angels’s fashion show home. Now that the introductions have been made, however, he should be less respectful next season: the opportunity for a bold non-snobby outsider mentality in this set-in-its-ways town is enormous.
5 March 2023
Francesco Ragazzi entitled this collection Welcome To Miami, delivering an irresistible prompt to drop Will Smith in the intro: “flow to this fashion show / Pound for pound anywhere you go / Yo, ain't no city in the world like this / And if you ask how I know I gots ta plead the fifth.”Palm Angels has made its significant mark selling Ragazzi’s outsider, Made in Italy-enabled, aesthetic approximation of California skate-luxe on a global scale, but as he observed on a Zoom he’s as much a sucker for Miami’s neon charms as the Fresh Prince. In turn, Miami itself has over the years embraced a fair dose of Italian design sensibility: chiefly the signature of Memphis Milano that continues to act as a signpost for the fleshpots of Florida 40 years on.There was plenty of Memphis’s brash pastels and angular shapes, mostly in the background, of a collection that studiously, overwhelmingly avoided the obvious references of Grand Theft Auto and Tony Montana. Instead Ragazzi used his photographer’s eye to assemble a series of character studies in clothing via minimalist oversized tailoring, carefully rendered workwear pastiche, and some unavoidable (because when in Miami…) tourist store kitsch. Shark print pants, a Miami Vice-ish font print jersey dress, pastel-palm totes, terry hoodies, and some excellent fine-strapped jelly shoes were all part of this elevated off-duty aesthetic. Especially meta-Miami were the pieces printed with watermarked vintage photographs, of cash, of a terrified face (that eluded reverse-searching) and of a stars-and-stripes muscle boat offshore.Ragazzi said: “As a passionate photographer—somewhere between committed amateur and semi-pro—Getty Images represents an essence of that passion. That archive, spanning editorial, historic, vintage, everything, is amazing. So I approached them for a collaboration. We wanted to tell part of the story of Miami through their archive images, and it was important to me to maintain those watermarks—as a footprint for the collection—because…”“Because Getty shots get stolen all the time and posted on social?”“Exactly!”Another nod to the digital was evident in the Palm Angels branded inverted waistband of his khaki shorts, a remix of the TikTok trend for twisting Dickies from skate staple to hip-skimming statement piece. Ragazzi’s latest was a balmy remix of wearable codes spiked by that ode to the alchemy of Magic City.
14 October 2022
Extricating himself from a crowded VIP backstage whose epicenter was Rod Stewart’s spiky coiffure, an upbeat Francesco Ragazzi brushed aside my question about the rationale behind this Palm Angels outing with a definitive “I’m not interested in explaining the collection; this show is a statement to understand where Palm Angels is situated now.” Which sounded like “please do shut up and listen”—which is what I did.Ragazzi said: “This collection is sort of connecting the dots after the PA show in New York two years ago; the brand has grown, as you can see when entering the show space [a cavernous industrial location in Milan’s outskirts]: there are huge palm trees suspended upside down from the ceiling, and blown-up David Sims images of the last advertising campaigns displayed at the entrance. This show for me is the representation of today’s concept of what new luxury means. For me it isn’t important to describe the collection; it’s more about lifestyle. This isn’t a show about a collection, and I don’t think I’m competing with anyone. Talking about the collection is reductive, talking about jackets or coats. I’m interested in talking about branding, my message is lifestyle. A lifestyle brand is able to have more touch points, I like to think that I’m creating a 360 degree universe—furniture, fragrances, music, the whole thing. This is PA world.”That said, lifestyle notwithstanding, and paraphrasing Gertrude Stein, a collection is a collection is a collection is a collection. And this one looked pretty good, full of funny mish-mashes and jumbles of bombers, sweaters, hoodies, cardis, shearlings, pajamas and tracksuits printed with flames, stars, stripes, palm trees, animal spots, and rhinestones. Moon-booted, padded, fur-slipped extremities à la skater were obviouslyde rigueur. A lifestyle without a collection isn’t a lifestyle, is it?
25 February 2022
It’s been 18 months since Francesco Ragazzi’s last show in New York back in February of 2020. He’s been Zooming from Milan ever since, but despite—or perhaps because of—his label’s streetwear roots, the clothes are really best appreciated in person. A Palm Angels sweatshirt might look relatively classic in a JPEG image, but up close, it’s a super-plush, lofty blend of alpaca and wool—more of a keep-forever investment piece than an impulse buy.His fall 2021 tracksuits come in silky jacquards with wider, gestural sleeves, styled here with diamanté chains, while his hoodies are shown under haute-looking faux furs. On our call, Ragazzi described his vision for the collection (which arrives in stores this week, including his brand-new outpost in Miami) as upgrading familiar basics and loungewear with ultra-high-grade materials and details. Regardless of COVID restrictions, he’s betting his customers will still want to feel comforted and cozy this fall, particularly those of us who’ve had hedonistic, scantily-clad summers.We’ve seen plenty of “luxe loungewear” this year, but Ragazzi isn’t just reacting to the moment; he sees this as a long-term shift. That’s why many of his pieces come with a leather patch embossed with the wordarchive, the suggestion being that they’ll become part of yours. Ragazzi designed them through the lens of timelessness and quality, not hype, and since much of his fabrics are still synthetic—the jacquards are a high-end polyester, for instance—the hope is that he’s also training his customers to buy less and wear their clothes for years to come. That change would arguably be even more impactful than just prioritizing sustainability within his own collections, and could prove influential for other streetwear designers, too.
15 September 2021
It’s been nearly a year since Francesco Ragazzi showed a new Palm Angels collection. His fall 2020 show in New York was a uniquely physical experience, with a pulsing DJ set, a neon light installation, and a crowd packed with industry folks and fans. Some shows are calm, quiet affairs; this one had a tangible energy. To Ragazzi, the physicality of a show goes hand-in-hand with the tactility of his clothes; he’s a designer who likes to experiment with multiple techniques and finishes in a single garment, merging streetwise shapes with a luxe, often couture-like hand. So it isn’t a surprise to hear that videos and virtual “shows” are not his thing. He was content to sit out the spring 2021 menswear season last summer, and is revealing the collection as it arrives in stores and online right now.With so much extra time, he also put together a distinctly analog experience: a printed book. Inside are snaps of the spring collection, behind-the-scenes photos of Ragazzi’s team in the Milan studio, and artwork by David Sims, Rosie Marks, Enzo Raggazini, Lea Colombo, and others. In the book’s introduction, Isabella Burley calls the tome “a celebration of the tactile,” a permanent keepsake to explain the collection in the absence of a show. More broadly, though, Ragazzi’s year of meditation convinced him that clothes aren’t enough anymore; a designer has to engage with their community and with the world around them, and offer value beyond the transactional sale of a jacket or T-shirt.Ragazzi presented a tight edit of lounge-y pieces with signature PA details—paint-splattered pullovers, embossed hoodies, jacquard tracksuits—and items with tweaked proportions, like a shrunken bomber jacket and a full, buffalo-checked midi-skirt. Many came with the distinctive green, gold, and red stripes of the Rastafari flag; Ragazzi noted that he’s a big reggae fan, and Jamaica is at the top of his list when he can travel again.It’s a familiar motif, one we’ve seen in enough movies, fashion shows, and tourist shops to forget its deeper meaning. Far beyond our commercialized ideas of Rastafarianism—peace and love, marijuana—it is, in fact, a real religion, and the flag is its most visible symbol. It’s to Rastafarianism what the Star of David is to Judaism, or the crescent moon and star to Islam. Marine Serre has facedcritiquefor her use of the crescent. Ragazzi’s intentions certainly aren’t malicious, but in 2021, consumers have come to expect a more thoughtful approach.
It goes back to the bigger trend Ragazzi observed: that designers are responsible for more than just making covetable garments, and consumers want to see them using their platforms for good.
5 February 2021
Francesco Ragazzi brought Palm Angels to New York for the second time tonight, a follow-up to last year’s jam-packed show in Chelsea. “Everyone’s talking about who isn’t showing in New York, but we’re excited to be here,” he said. A single glance at his fall collection might suggest he’s going to make New York Fashion Week a regular habit: Fall was a study of all things Americana, particularly the Southwest, with suede jackets, desert boots, ponchos, and tons of fringe. It isn’t just that Ragazzi is obsessed with those classic American tropes, nor that a certain “yeehaw agenda” is trending. He sees real guys and girls dressing this way and believes it’s a compelling middle ground between fashion’s favorite extremes: streetwear and tailoring. The menswear crowd in particular has argued that streetwear is dead, and “sartorial” elegance is back, but Ragazzi doesn’t see it in such black-and-white terms.Instead, his m.o. is simply to take familiar items—jeans, sweaters, shearling jackets—and upgrade them with the finest Italian craftsmanship. It’s fair to assume the fringed jackets were hand-finished, for instance, as well as the paint-splattered coats and loopy knitted sweaters. Elsewhere, fleece zip-ups were printed with mountain landscapes for a haute-R.E.I. feeling, blazers came in plush blanket weaves, button-downs were scattered with scans of turquoise rings and pendants, and zip-up jumpsuits were embroidered with the inlay patterns of cowboy boots. It’s necessary to point out the risk of appropriating Indigenous motifs, particularly the graphic Navajo pattern used on the tailoring and ponchos. Ragazzi was better off when he mixed a subtle Southwestern spirit with his usual eclectic, mashed-up style: A men’s sunset-striped knit was shown with a crystal necklace and photo-print trousers, and a few guys wore satin pajama pants with their fringed jackets and mohair knits.Palm Angels had the 9 p.m. slot tonight, a blessing or a curse depending on the designer. For Ragazzi, it was the former. Every seat was filled, and there was audible cheering coming from the front row; the show itself was high energy too, with a brief light show and thumping music. Afterward, as the writers in the room made a beeline for the door, the crowd of musicians, fans, and friends of the brand continued to mill around the space. Chances are, their night was just starting.
12 February 2020
Francesco Ragazzi brought Palm Angels to New York for the second time tonight, a follow-up to last year’s jam-packed show in Chelsea. “Everyone’s talking about who isn’t showing in New York, but we’re excited to be here,” he said. A single glance at his fall collection might suggest he’s going to make New York Fashion Week a regular habit: Fall was a study of all things Americana, particularly the Southwest, with suede jackets, desert boots, ponchos, and tons of fringe. It isn’t just that Ragazzi is obsessed with those classic American tropes, nor that a certain “yeehaw agenda” is trending. He sees real guys and girls dressing this way and believes it’s a compelling middle ground between fashion’s favorite extremes: streetwear and tailoring. The menswear crowd in particular has argued that streetwear is dead, and “sartorial” elegance is back, but Ragazzi doesn’t see it in such black-and-white terms.Instead, his m.o. is simply to take familiar items—jeans, sweaters, shearling jackets—and upgrade them with the finest Italian craftsmanship. It’s fair to assume the fringed jackets were hand-finished, for instance, as well as the paint-splattered coats and loopy knitted sweaters. Elsewhere, fleece zip-ups were printed with mountain landscapes for a haute-R.E.I. feeling, blazers came in plush blanket weaves, button-downs were scattered with scans of turquoise rings and pendants, and zip-up jumpsuits were embroidered with the inlay patterns of cowboy boots. It’s necessary to point out the risk of appropriating Indigenous motifs, particularly the graphic Navajo pattern used on the tailoring and ponchos. Ragazzi was better off when he mixed a subtle Southwestern spirit with his usual eclectic, mashed-up style: A men’s sunset-striped knit was shown with a crystal necklace and photo-print trousers, and a few guys wore satin pajama pants with their fringed jackets and mohair knits.Palm Angels had the 9 p.m. slot tonight, a blessing or a curse depending on the designer. For Ragazzi, it was the former. Every seat was filled, and there was audible cheering coming from the front row; the show itself was high energy too, with a brief light show and thumping music. Afterward, as the writers in the room made a beeline for the door, the crowd of musicians, fans, and friends of the brand continued to mill around the space. Chances are, their night was just starting.
10 February 2020
Palm Angels has always shown clothes on women as part of its menswear—its universe is unisex—and the brand has observed that an increasing proportion of its customers are female. So, inevitably, this season saw the first-ever dedicated womenswear ready-to-wear collection from Francesco Ragazzi’s label.Like the last menswear collection, this was a purposeful mishmash inspired by thrifting but elevated though fabrication to be luxurious. Pajamas, skirts, and dresses came in the same floral we saw in Milan, and there was another leather-accented riff on the Leo shirt, as well as collegiate American pieces branded around a Palm Angels university. Denim was delivered via apron dresses and loose washed dungarees, and cropped-top tracksuits came in velour. Reworked vintage soccer shirts looked a little Argentina and moto bodies a little ’80s U.S. national gymnastics squad. A down-filled gilet was stitched with a palm-tree-paneled back, and the brand’s slightly alarming decapitated teddy bear branding was imported from menswear.The daisy print on a drill dress and matching jewelry was De La Soul reminiscent, and the placement of the lines of tie-dye on dresses and flannel shirts was expertly and beautifully done. There was also a fun collection within a collection of robes, totes, slides, and a great terry-tied sun hat presented as merchandise for a fictional Palm Angels beach club. It seemed like a chill place to be.
2 October 2019
Francesco Ragazzi has recently become a father for the second time and in this collection his third baby, Palm Angels, displayed an interesting twist of generational shift. It felt like an act of passing on to the label’s acolytes a trove of menswear motifs which Ragazzi rightly loves. This was expressed through the conceit of a series of vintage store finds reworked and refreshed to appeal to the much-younger man of today.My personal theory is that it’s less fashion that renews itself every season than it is the audience who has come of age enough to pay attention to it. Here Ragazzi introduced his audience—via a soundtrack that started with that ultimate dad standard,In The Air Tonight—to various wearable sources of joy including leisure suits; basketball shirts with tattoo or pin-up girl prints; cavalry striped slacks; fishtail parkas; andMagnum P.I.-style Hawaiian prints on shirts and outerwear, accessorized—like every look here—with Lei-like rubber band garlands. These looks were carefully remixed to resonate freshly and featured eye-catching asides—extra strapping, detachable leather pochettes, single-lens cyclops sunglasses—to add an extra sheen of newness. Slingback cushioned sneakers were geekily cool, as were the boxy rainbow gilets.Just like the trains that rattled along the platforms of Porta Venezia metro station below us (the show was held in an underground mezzanine first opened up by Nike as a free to use dance and exercise studio earlier this year) this was a collection that ran to a painstakingly conceived plan. Its mission was to deliver Palm Angels passengers to a menswear destination that will stand them in good stead for years to come.
16 June 2019
Palm Angelsfounder Francesco Ragazzi thinks big. That may sound like a broad statement, but in Ragazzi’s case, it’s apt: His approach is a 360-degree, digitally integrated and ambitious push for maximum scale. In four quick years, Palm Angels has gone from a new kid on the block to a global disrupter, demolishing the line of luxury and hype and creating an atmosphere all its own in the process.This was evinced with Fall, which was shown in New York City for the first time (Palm Angels normally shows in Milan). At West Chelsea’s Cedar Lake space, a complex light show pierced the room with militant timing, faux-Greek statues were hidden behind mirrored-glass cubes, and Marilyn Manson’s “The Dope Show” thudded with gritty, lip-curling menace through the sound system. An ardent crowd turned out, so much so that some surprise invitees, selected through a giveaway that Ragazzi put up on Instagram, boarded last-minute transatlantic flights just to catch the event. All of this ties into the aforementioned: The man knows damn well how to manifest his vision and, in tandem, manufacture hype around it. The bigger the better.So did the clothes—oh yeah, there were clothes!—justify it? For the most part, yes. Palm Angels became famous for tracksuits and hoodies—it’s beyond that now. “I wanted to move away from streetwear here; the brand has to grow,” said Ragazzi. “I wanted to bring it to New York but I didn’t want to give New York something that it already had.” This sentiment resulted in a dressier lineup, complete with a strong uptick in tailoring, and a mix-and-matched visual language spanning from aliens to a logo that read “Sensitive Content” to an equestrian scarf motif to bionically sculpted leather dresses. “It’s sportswear, the sartorial, and streetwear,” said Ragazzi. “With layers of hunting and fishing.”Technical jackets featured allover pocketing and layering; tights had patterns; grungy trousers boasted a space-dye motif. But when it became a little too busy or freewheeling, Ragazzi righted it with his best-in-show pieces: slightly shrunken riding blazers, often with pocket medals and chains. You know the phrase, go big or go home? Ragazzi made it clear tonight: He’s booming.
9 February 2019
Palm Angelsfounder Francesco Ragazzi thinks big. That may sound like a broad statement, but in Ragazzi’s case, it’s apt: His approach is a 360-degree, digitally integrated and ambitious push for maximum scale. In four quick years, Palm Angels has gone from a new kid on the block to a global disrupter, demolishing the line of luxury and hype and creating an atmosphere all its own in the process.This was evinced with Fall, which was shown in New York City for the first time (Palm Angels normally shows in Milan). At West Chelsea’s Cedar Lake space, a complex light show pierced the room with militant timing, faux-Greek statues were hidden behind mirrored-glass cubes, and Marilyn Manson’s “The Dope Show” thudded with gritty, lip-curling menace through the sound system. An ardent crowd turned out, so much so that some surprise invitees, selected through a giveaway that Ragazzi put up on Instagram, boarded last-minute transatlantic flights just to catch the event. All of this ties into the aforementioned: The man knows damn well how to manifest his vision and, in tandem, manufacture hype around it. The bigger the better.So did the clothes—oh yeah, there were clothes!—justify it? For the most part, yes. Palm Angels became famous for tracksuits and hoodies—it’s beyond that now. “I wanted to move away from streetwear here; the brand has to grow,” said Ragazzi. “I wanted to bring it to New York but I didn’t want to give New York something that it already had.” This sentiment resulted in a dressier lineup, complete with a strong uptick in tailoring, and a mix-and-matched visual language spanning from aliens to a logo that read “Sensitive Content” to an equestrian scarf motif to bionically sculpted leather dresses. “It’s sportswear, the sartorial, and streetwear,” said Ragazzi. “With layers of hunting and fishing.”Technical jackets featured allover pocketing and layering; tights had patterns; grungy trousers boasted a space-dye motif. But when it became a little too busy or freewheeling, Ragazzi righted it with his best-in-show pieces: slightly shrunken riding blazers, often with pocket medals and chains. You know the phrase, go big or go home? Ragazzi made it clear tonight: He’s booming.
9 February 2019
“Basically, I started the idea for this collection back in February, thinking of Yosemite National Park. Then I started working with Under Armour. And then I did the thing in Miami with Swedish House Mafia. All of that came together in this weird way.” That was designer Francesco Ragazzi’s explanation of his Palm Angels coed Spring show on this hot Milanese evening.Some clarifications: This past spring, Ragazzi linked up with the musicians Swedish House Mafia on a merchandise drop at Miami Music Week; “rave” elements, like neon (everywhere this season), chest bands, and micro-Matrixglasses paid homage to electronica. As for Yosemite, prints of terrain maps and snow-laden pine trees found their way onto shirting. (Pine Angels? It has a nice ring to it.) The Under Armour collaboration yielded hoodies, joggers, shorts, and T-shirts in “Recovery” fabric, designed for . . . well, helping the hangover. Or the soreness from skiing. Or both. “Recovery” was the name of the collection.This trio of discordant inspirations led to a more designed Palm Angels collection than we’ve seen before (more street-conceptual, let’s say). There was also a continued, interesting presentation of Ragazzi’s pokes and jabs at “American” ways. See: sportive cowboy boots rendered in the star-spangled banner, or blurred allover prints of a great bald eagle, it too soaring in front of Old Glory. The Under Armour parts almost fetishized the boutique workout culture that’s inescapable in the States. Mini, whip-corded shorts in electro-pink with meshed arm-warmers for Barry’s Bootcamp? Unlikely, but this sort of soft-yet-skewed athleticism worked to Palm Angels’s subversive favor and flavor all the same.
17 June 2018
Right around the corner from the Prada show, a former lightbulb factory was the gathering spot for Francesco Ragazzi’s latest Palm Angels personages. Amid lasers piercing the darkened space, they marched around like a clan of outsiders subverting classic tartans and hiding behind balaclavas sprouting spikes. Sure, they looked every bit intimidating and maybe a little ridiculous, but suppose they were merely germophobes using extreme measures to avoid contact? To hear Ragazzi tell it, this was primarily an exercise in mashing up the disparate influences of unadulterated punk with the American Midwest. He usedAmerican Gothic, the famous painting of an elderly rural couple by Grant Wood, as a pattern on workwear shirts or enlarged on a floaty dress like the Louis Vuitton x Jeff Koons that got away. The treatment was especially gutsy as a pair of jeans in which their faces wrapped around the wearer’s legs; far subtler was the fridge magnet–size image affixed to a back pocket. As overexposed as the work may be, art appreciation doesn’t usually come this flagrant.Yet the majority of the lineup got its edge from a more familiar mix of branding, remixing, and clashing. When the crochet, Western shirts, tracksuits, pink PVC, and patchwork leather arrives in stores, few customers would be daring enough to attempt a total look. Granted, the permission to role-play in this strange hybrid space will be tempting, even just insofar as adding a security tag pin to a bonded tartan bomber or carrying around a lockbox bag. What’s more, Western belts and spiked slippers underscored how easy it can be to depart from the obvious streetwear tropes. “Being rebellious is always a part of my collections, but I think this time there’s a really interesting mix, a different perspective,” said Ragazzi. Just think twice before wearing the balaclava to run errands.
14 January 2018
Right around the corner from the Prada show, a former lightbulb factory was the gathering spot for Francesco Ragazzi’s latest Palm Angels personages. Amid lasers piercing the darkened space, they marched around like a clan of outsiders subverting classic tartans and hiding behind balaclavas sprouting spikes. Sure, they looked every bit intimidating and maybe a little ridiculous, but suppose they were merely germophobes using extreme measures to avoid contact? To hear Ragazzi tell it, this was primarily an exercise in mashing up the disparate influences of unadulterated punk with the American Midwest. He usedAmerican Gothic, the famous painting of an elderly rural couple by Grant Wood, as a pattern on workwear shirts or enlarged on a floaty dress like the Louis Vuitton x Jeff Koons that got away. The treatment was especially gutsy as a pair of jeans in which their faces wrapped around the wearer’s legs; far subtler was the fridge magnet–size image affixed to a back pocket. As overexposed as the work may be, art appreciation doesn’t usually come this flagrant.Yet the majority of the lineup got its edge from a more familiar mix of branding, remixing, and clashing. When the crochet, Western shirts, tracksuits, pink PVC, and patchwork leather arrives in stores, few customers would be daring enough to attempt a total look. Granted, the permission to role-play in this strange hybrid space will be tempting, even just insofar as adding a security tag pin to a bonded tartan bomber or carrying around a lockbox bag. What’s more, Western belts and spiked slippers underscored how easy it can be to depart from the obvious streetwear tropes. “Being rebellious is always a part of my collections, but I think this time there’s a really interesting mix, a different perspective,” said Ragazzi. Just think twice before wearing the balaclava to run errands.
14 January 2018
For Spring, Francesco Ragazzi’s Palm Angels spread its dark feathers and swooped over an urban beach complex, looking for both surf . . . and shenanigans. His Los Angeleno narrative is still compelling, and today it felt less merchandise driven and more fashion-forward than in the past. (This is a good thing.)“I was thinking of the surf riot in 1986, on Huntington Beach. Then I wanted to take that and make a kind of California 3.0, possibly the future of Palm Angels,” said Ragazzi backstage at his gigantic, industrial venue, which featured tons of painted sand and dump trucks as props. Broodily, that vision emerged as hooded parkas, XL-sleeved field jackets, fatigues, and miniskirts (there was significantly more womenswear today), often with throwback cartoony palm prints. One of Ragazzi’s strengths is that he knows well how to delve into the underbelly of this sun-strewn domain—like Fall, the styling and the silhouettes were standoffish and menacing. One barrel-sleeved hoodie even readRage. He named the collection Black Sun.Though on brighter notes: There was a new collaboration with Sundek, the swimwear brand, which somehow morphed into swimpants. The idea sounds ridiculous in discussion, but IRL they were double-take cool. You kind of thought: What if I actually did wear these to the beach? I could do it. “Think of it as a track pant for the pool,” said Ragazzi. He added that, back on land, “tracksuits are a big thing for me.” His finale boasted a proper rainbow of them; rotten-core Angels but with open wings. All in all, it was well-executed, entertaining stuff.
19 June 2017
Picture this: A Wall Street guy gets fired, or rather, gets so angry with the system, he quits the game and decamps to Southern California. And through the weed smoke and sunny lethargy of it all, he finds that his new life doesn’t totally wipe out his old demons. He’s still mad with corporate everywhere. Occupy Venice Beach.Such was the message behind Francesco Ragazzi’s latest Palm Angels collection. The 2-year-old brand, which is based in Milan but showed here for the first time this evening, has been snowballing in popularity in the hype-fueled, hazy world of fashion merch. Troye Sivan wore a Spring Palm Angels “rainbow” hoodie last year to much social media fanfare; in Milan last night, Ragazzi did a surprise drop of free sweatshirts. “Two minutes,” he said, for 200 pieces to fly off the trucks. (Those revealed his new logo, a caution-sign triangle with a palm tree, as per.)And before naysayers bemoan yet-another-streetwear brand, remember that Ragazzi knows his proverbial shit: The man started Palm Angels after photographing a book of the same name around skateboarding culture in Los Angeles. What he does is convincing, if not downright compelling.Fall had lots of ska-era flares on logo-stamped pants, or denim. Hardware, either Old English P’s or A’s, swung from zipped-all-the-way-up tops. Bloodshot eyes stared ahead from behind narrow sunglasses with unforgiving Croakies. There were subtle nods to the old banker’s life, too, like gold buttons traditionally reserved for navy blazers, only this time on a fuzzy plaid topcoat. Rasta-striped shirts, giant text lines across the shoulders, stoner dad hats, and cool cross-body bags rounded out Ragazzi’s defense—and, even if it’s not everybody’s preferred strain, one can’t help but to smile at the audacity and the draw of his Angels.
16 January 2017
Putting the Kama Sutra into suiting via a jacquard of athletically impressive positions of mutual pleasure was just one amongst multiple thrills in Francesco Ragazzi’s collection. Very vaguely about rebellion and festivals and a skateboarder he once took a photograph of who he thought looked like Jimi Hendrix, this collection was a carefully tended stew containing a slew of evergreen youth culture staples. There were military pieces, including one M-65 jacket Ragazzi said had taken scores of man-hours to rip and fray just so, and appropriated approximations of Walmart and Sports Authority–sourced deer-print hunting gear.A women’s dungaree was layered with badges featuring the gothic-font P.A. initials as eyes on a smiley face: another nod to high-production values applied to clothing of low provenance. Loungewear, grunge-touched pajamas, bucket hats, and hoodies—featuring that smiley—similarly played counterweight to a tiger-print fur coat and that exactingly produced X-rated tailoring. The Palm Angels manifesto is not rocket science, yet Ragazzi has a cool-hunter’s eye for delivering with-a-twist tweaks on long-stablished templates.
21 July 2016