Boglioli (Q3928)
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Boglioli is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Boglioli |
Boglioli is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
It is important to know that Boglioli was a manufacturing company before it was a brand. This season, it celebrated its 50th anniversary with a presentation in the Teatro alla Scala’s foyer, in Milan.The festivities began with its K-Jacket, a special limited version available in 50 numbered pieces. It’s not just a recognizable item (and a brand best seller), but a real testament to the construction of the formal jacket, the result of long years of work, first for others, then for Boglioli itself. The jacket is completely unlined and, despite being made of very precious materials, it maintains an informal attitude, a sense of total ease.“You have to forget you’re wearing it,” says Boglioli’s CEO Francesco Russo of the K-Jacket. Hidden luxury, neither loud nor ostentatious, is the common thread of the whole collection. An Irish linen suit, for example, was garment dyed a shade of tempera green paint. Other suits were made from mixed wool, micron, and silk, impalpable and practical, great for looking and feeling cool on hot days, like the day of the brand’s presentation.There’s been a lot of talk online about stealth wealth, and on the runways we’ve witnessed the comeback of a more refined male wardrobe. At Boglioli it’s not just about the suits. Trench coats, shirts, chino trousers—this idea of elegant informality can be applied to all pieces in a man’s wardrobe. That holds true even for the label’s evening wear. The tuxedo here was cut in white linen and paired with a denim shirt.
20 June 2023
Boglioli presented its new season collection via a lookbook by Adriano Russo—with the images enlarged for display and the garments alongside on mannequins—in a room directly adjacent to a 20 year retrospective dedicated to the portraiture of Vincent Peters. It’s always fun to take in a show at Palazzo Reale (other current exhibitions are focused on Hieronymous Bosch and Max Ernst), but at first this decision seemed a marketing misdirection. Because having meandered through Vogue-colleague Alessia Glaviana’s curation of nearly 100 Peters portraits, all composed with a sculptural mastery of light, tone, and detail, your eye did not seem immediately primed for tailoring and its soft-clothed sundries.But Boglioli, based 100km from Milan in Gambara, is not a house that relies on shallow immediacy. As you looked, the garments and Russo’s shoot affinities to the portraits next door gradually became suggested themselves. A russet colored cashmere overcoat was garment-dyed in a manner that gave it an almost conversational relationship to the play of light around it, shadowing and brightening to the touch. A mix of aran and cable knit sweaters contained gentle twists upon their patterned construction’s more conventional expression. Boglioli’s endlessly returned-to subject—the unstructured superlight K-jacket that first found it fame—was variously framed in oxblood herringbone lambswool, 14 micron wool in woodstain-brown or monochrome houndstooth, garment-dyed camel cashmere, and more. Each edition was both strikingly recognizable and freshly striking.The house also worked to broaden the depth of its offer beyond that traditional tailored focus. Cashmere, velvet, and corduroy clad-outerwear—bombers, pea coats, and parkas—was worn against five pocket pants in denim and more velvet. A riff on Western dressing in denim and corduroy shirting, plus accessories, was to this eye the only aimless detail in a portfolio of crafted menswear which, in the end, seemed well-placed.
31 January 2023
Anthony Del Tufo, manager of Boglioli’s outpost on Bond Street, said that May 2022 was to his knowledge the best performing month in the store’s history. “Over the last few years when we were open we had guys coming in and buying maybe one thing—because basically they wanted to get out of their apartments—but now they are coming in and buying six, seven, or more pieces. It’s really picking up.”It’s easy to lose your perspective while covering menswear shows. After just a few days the directional dressing in and around them that keeps Vogue Runway’s street style features ticking over begins to feel almost mundane. After clocking a guy lounging by the fountain wearing nothing but his hair at Rick Owens recently, I barely paused a beat. But men’s dressing is a many-splendored thing: Boglioli appeals to a different niche entirely.This youthfully-managed company’s expertise in light-touch tailoring and deep fabric research with partner suppliers including Zegna and Loro Piana means it is well-equipped to appeal to those who wish to appear unconventionally conventional. Richly matte garment dyed jackets in silk bourette, cashmere, and certified merino wool provide irreproachable formal facades while telegraphing a soupcon of discerning nonconformism. Linen and silk blend knitwear, patch pocketed linen shackets, heavier linen field jackets and almost weightless safari shirts in tightly spun cotton provide plenty of optional add-ons through which to expand your wardrobe. Del Tufo’s intelligence suggests that there are plenty of men out there who are motivated to do just that.
25 June 2022
Milan’s Boglioli chose this season to launch an in-earnest capsule of womenswear alongside its long-established men’s. When presented alongside their menswear equivalents at the house’s showroom this morning, the on-mannequin effect was obviously too matchy-matchy for any but the creepily cutesiest real-world couples. However, you could easily see the cashmere Bermudas, cashmere corduroy deconstructed field jackets, and delicately herringboned K-Jackets—which, unlike their completely unstructured for-men counterparts, had just the slightest ballast in the shoulder—translating finely into the real world. Viviana Volpicella, who worked with Boglioli on shaping this capsule, steered it away from becoming an overly fitted and overly literal reflection of the menswear—a trap that befalls many sartorially sourced women’s offshoots.Back to menswear, and Boglioli continues to stick to its tailoring roots while working to broaden the span of its tailoring. Highlights included preppy soft-shouldered, checked jackets in thistle-brushed cashmere, a vaguely louche field jacket in olive velvet, the straight-leg corduroy pants that look so good against the New Balance sneakers chosen for this look book, and substantial cashmere rib-knit zip-up cardigans. Cashmere—Boglioli’s key fabric—was presented as a K-Jacket for the first time in a fully recycled incarnation, accredited, the company said, to GRS (Globally Recycled Standard). Alongside the other GRS garments on display, it looked as good as new.
18 January 2022
“I wished I were in Milan with her. I would like to eat at the Cova and then walk down the Via Manzoni in the hot evening and cross over and turn off along the canal and go to the hotel with Catherine Barkley.” So Ernest Hemingway wrote in his second novelA Farewell to Arms,a fictionalized account of his own time in Milan. Hemingway came to the city as a volunteer ambulance driver for the Red Cross and was injured and hospitalized for six months, during which time he was awarded a medal for his bravery by the Italian authorities and fell in love with a nurse, Agnes. Agnes and Ernest decided to marry. Then he shipped home, and she had her head turned by an Italian officer: C’est la guerre.Milan’s Boglioli was not around back then—it was born in 1974—and neither was the fully developed role that Hemingway would eventually create for himself as the appetite-filled, richly bearded, barrel-chested, bionically brained masculine superhero of North American literature. For anyone who has watched Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s epic PBS documentary on the man, you can see that Hemingway chose his clothes almost as carefully as his words in order to write a visible costume of the values he aspired, successfully, to embody.Which brings us back to Boglioli, which makes a fine rendition of the safari jacket, or the “Hemingway,” that would extremely effectively allow you to harness that midcentury Big Game energy. In this collection it was presented in superlight navy denim, two pulsating colorways in linen, and a more Key West–specific taupe.The rest of the collection was less Hemingway and more “Good Italian,” which was the writer’s definition of Italian sprezzatura—the masculine clothes consciousness that he surely was inspired by to shape to his own ends.Cotton and Tencel or cotton and linen blends, carefully garment-dyed, were used to craft neatly proportioned pieces of deconstructed tailoring that you would choose carefully before wearing lightly. To cater for the post-Hemingway generations, there were some discreetly rich cashmere cotton sportswear “sweats.” Any man looking to embellish his own worn story could benefit from a piece of Boglioli’s carefully crafted rhetoric.
6 July 2021
Alain Delon’s wardrobe in René Clément’sPlein Soleil,from the Patricia Highsmith storyThe Talented Mr. Ripley,was the basis of this handsome Boglioli collection. There were a couple of very literal nods to that movie here, including a K jacket re-creation of the blazer in regimental stripes that is an emblem of Ripley’s sinister appropriation of Greenleaf’s identity (and wardrobe). More broadly this was a collection of light and luxurious, mostly tailored, pieces that would be a pleasure to wear whether WFH or at leisure on the Amalfi coast, whose colors informed its palette.Either in Prince of Wales check or in plain-color linen, jersey linen, shantung silk, cotton-silk, wool-silk, and various other fine fabrications, including a sustainability-minded Tencel option, there was a wide array of K jackets, as well as the slim-fit pants to complement them. Boglioli’s dyeing process ensures a high level of stretch—without elastane—in many garments, and it is the appearance of structure combined with a free-feeling wear that makes this label so attractive to its many dedicated return buyers.Here that formula was extended beyond tailoring into some cultured field jackets and a few satisfyingly crunchy garment dyed nylon shirts. There was also a first for the label in a hoodie (garment dyed, again) featuring the Boglioli logo. This, said export manager Paolo Leo, reflected the increasing interest in the brand from customers in the Middle East, which has led to increased department store orders from that region (along with a specific request for logo hoodies).Like everyone else in Milan right now, Leo and his colleagues are most worried by the apparent implosion of retail in the U.S. However as Leonardo Brugiatelli (marketing) observed as this appointment drew to a close, a first-quarter rise in online sales for Boglioli that almost entirely compensated for the coronavirus-consequence first-quarter loss in brick-and-mortar sales has represented some kind of upside. Whether it’s in your work clothes or your working philosophy, flexibility rules right now: And if you can look even a little like Delon in his pomp while adapting to now, then why not?
21 July 2020
“Our customer is a man who keeps coming back season after season because he doesn’t have to think.” That take on Boglioli from one of its reps at its bustling Pitti stand today made pretty powerful sense. Arrayed around us was a broad selection of the house’s signature K jackets, most barely shirt-thin, hanging from hooks rather than a rail, the better to show how softly fluid their minimal construction makes them. They came in a new gray check lambswool, a series of checked brushed cottons, in a cashmere mix, and more. Sometimes they came with a matching pant, but only rarely.The side salads to the K-flavored main dish included garment-dyed needle corduroy shirting, some velvet evening jackets and pants, and a discreetly striped cashmere hoodie. All of it was attractive if you like that sort of thing, and many do: The rep said their U.S. clientele runs from 18 to 80 and often includes several generations of the same family. This is classic Italian menswear of a lustrously sporty style—ultra-prep—that will endure. “Ours is uncomplicated fashion,” observed my Boglioli guide: “We do what we do very well and our customers really respond to it.” Which is fair enough.
17 January 2020
The message at Boglioli felt as messy as the canvasses in the art studio background of this lookbook. To the side of this company’s Pitti pavilion was a handsome poster stating that the inspiration for this season’s output was a young businessman’s epiphany over his lunch encounter with Rothko’s contributions to the old Four Seasons (whose new, second iteration recently shut down). Aside from the fact that Rothko’s murals never made the walls of the restaurant, none of the earnest and perfectly nice Boglioli crew I cornered mentioned any of this flimflam until I brought it up after a long conversation about the big push they had been making into softening silhouettes and garment dyeing. The clothes themselves were pleasing enough, sometimes beautiful, and consistently Boglioli-ian, but we were in the middle of a three-floor pavilion jammed with hundreds of different Italian menswear houses—and outside there were more pavilions with thousands of brands from around the world.Perhaps the time spent here could have resulted in an epiphany over a previously unseen designer (exploring new houses is the great joy of Pitti) who had more substance than the fiction on the wall. Boglioli has just struck a new deal to outfit AC Milan, which is a strong statement in the domestic Italian market. Maybe the brand should focus on tweaking its fine clothes and working on this more straightforward form of messaging than chucking random rhetoric at a wall, then hoping we’ll swallow it after its several-year period pushing a runway format in Milan that in the end—just like the Four Seasons Rothko nod—never bore the fruit it was supposed to.
25 June 2019
This is a house whose defining piece, the unlined K jacket, is about lightness: a garment that imparts a sense of physical freedom while belying its appearance of formality. Freedom might be the headline, but formality remains very much a key part of Boglioli’s inherent tension. So, dropping into the sweltering Boglioli Pitti stand today, it was semi-shocking to see so much apparently uncontrolled color.This was achieved by double-dipping garment-dye processes applied to white wool jackets, a method that created multiple color dialectics that literally split at the seams. Other bold additions to the Boglioli vocabulary included the addition of grosgrain piping to outrageously light pants and jackets, among them the brand’s excellent new (covered last season) riff on the workwear shirt.This lookbook was shot in Boglioli’s factory in Gambara, a choice that interestingly emphasized how industrially produced luxury goods can retain a visibly analog hand. The architecture of suiting deformalized via the chaos of conflicting color was the key point in a collection that should appeal to free spirits whose circumstances demand they are at leastapparentlyconventional souls.
12 June 2018
For those in the know, Boglioli is an important yet relatively niche player in the richly populated league of Italian industrial sartorialism. A northern firm, from Brescia, it adapted the southern Italian yen for deconstruction for its finely produced tailoring to create its emblematic K-jacket: a piece that looks formal but wears casual.That rather nuanced innovation, however, was easy to replicate, or at least to apparently replicate. Now Boglioli has been purchased by a Spanish fund called Phi Industrial, under whose stewardship it presented its first Pitti presentation today. Were there K-jackets? Of course. However, a handmade example in checked cotton cashmere and silk that came with heat-bonded buttonholes and a matching zippered waistcoat hinted at the direction Boglioli is heading. More radical, at least for a firm long committed to tailored sprezzatura, was a stand-dominating display of workwear jackets. Presented in a suite of garment-dyed shades from orange to navy, they were offered in multiple fabrications: cashmere herringbone, cotton, wool, a cotton-polyamide mix with those heat-bonded buttonholes, and more besides. Outerwear included a featherlight but built-tough leather-lined parka in a subtly blended russet and green herringbone. Within the cloistered context of Pitti, the adoption by Boglioli of workwear was a relatively radical and handsomely executed strategy to broaden its appeal.
12 January 2018
Boglioli presented its Spring collection at Pitti in Florence and in its Milanese showroom. It was designed by an internal team. The company’s core item has always been the blazer, unlined and soft as a shirt, ready to travel looking smart and pristine, with no apparent effort. For Spring, it came in many iterations and fabrics, from Japanese selvedge denim to luscious silk. Fit was precise yet loose, in keeping with the classic K-jackets around which Boglioli has built a cult following.History is a big reservoir for labels trying to look elevated. Here, a silk pochette lectured on the origins of the termblazer. Apparently, a quite vain British captain of a Victorian frigate called3rd HMS Blazerwas so taken by his appearance that, in order to please the Queen and stand out in her presence, he added sparkling brass buttons to his severe navy blue uniform. A star was born.
21 June 2017
Boglioli opted for a presentation this season, ditching the catwalk for a more intimate approach, a fitting homage to its superb craftsmanship that could be fully appreciated up close. Davide Marello, the label’s lanky, polite creative director, was on hand to welcome guests, walking them through the lineup as if the display were mimicking the long promenades that he enjoys, strolling daily through Milan’s most secret corners. “I love Milan in winter when it’s foggy,” he said dreamily, sounding like a romantic character out of a Stendhal novel. Fog in winter is actually a peculiar adornment of the city landscape; thick and dense, it shrouds everything in a muffled layer of blurring perceptions. It looks quite magical, the not-so-romantic Milanese pollution notwithstanding.Marello is a cultivated designer, with a suave yet analytical approach. His love for blurred atmospheres led him to an appreciation of photographer Saul Laiter’s work, with its misty interiors; abstract city views from steamy car windows on rainy days; and poetic, delicate voyeuristic portraits. “I tried to convey this sense ofvelaturainto the collection,” said Marello, referring to a peculiar painting technique mastered by Leonardo da Vinci in his landscapes, depicting the foggy surroundings of Italy’s northern lands. All this weighty cultural baggage somehow gelled in Boglioli’s lineup; the designer was able to translate his idea of patina in a dynamic way, using the latest technologies on textures and colors to achieve a modern, luxurious effect.Boglioli’s signature style revolves around a construction technique that leaves jackets and coats light as feathers, totally unlined yet perfectly fitted, elegant butdécontracté, with an easy feel combined with high quality. Marello added his poetic flair to the color palette of muted blues, octanes, and teals. To achieve the “foggy” finish that he envisioned, he had textures creatively treated by cutting-edge technologies. Bouclé wools, flannels, tartans, and sables were combed and almost “ripped,” or puffed up by special garment-dying techniques. The signature K-blazer retained its soft, malleable shoulders and was paired with high-waisted pants; lines and silhouettes were kept comfortable for a stylish, cool allure. It all had a classy but up-to-date feel. Those soft blazers and tartan slim city coats would look lovely on girls, too; perfect for strolling with practical nonchalance on a Milanese foggy morning.
22 January 2017
Davide Marello, Boglioli’s young, lanky, and well-mannered creative director, has a penchant for art, which nowadays seems to serve as a prerequisite for every fashion designer worthy of the title. Art images are plastered across every mood board, the more arcane the better. Sometimes they’re just a thin veneer of maquillage layered over quite weak collections to upgrade them and make them seem nobler and less mundane: A marketing trick. But that didn’t seem to apply to Marello, whose inspiration seemed quite authentic; well-bred guys are not supposed to cheat, after all.For Spring Marello referenced Nicolas de Staël, a Russian painter and émigré of illustrious lineage. “He lived in Paris in the same artistic milieu as Kandinskij, but was less successful. I’ve always loved his paintings,” said Marello who, as an art graduate, was showing his credentials. “His style was rarefied, powerfully restrained, abstract, and sentimental at the same time.” Being quite the romantic wanderer, the designer also waxed lyrical about the shadows cast in summer by the ornate wrought iron gates concealing from view the manicured courtyards of Milanese palazzos. They were reminiscent of abstract paintings, Marello explained. The patterns were translated onto atmospheric prints for classic silk shirts and for the malleable, unlined artisanal blazers for which Boglioli is known. Marello kept the silhouette slim and simple; shapes were soft and relaxed, in keeping with the label’s tradition and excellent craftsmanship. The style was understated, elegant, as soft-spoken as the designer himself, with a bit of modern nonchalance thrown in for good measure. It made for a balanced, compelling collection; yet, a gesture à la De Staël—instinctive yet stylish, a bit raw, emotionally blasé—would’ve have further enhanced Boglioli’s modern sense of elegance.
19 June 2016
The Italian menswear landscape certainly doesn’t lack variety. The galaxy of small, niche fashion brands can be compared to a biodiverse ecosystem that has grown organically over the years.Boglioliis an element of it: an industry best-kept secret, a little gem of a brand that was too good to stay hidden from view for long. So it grew a cult following (organically). The label’s malleable, unlined, soft-as-cardigans blazers were treasured by the happy few in the know. Now the time seems right for a close-up: A creative director has been appointed, a fashion show staged, the lineup extended and pumped up.Boglioli’s new designer is Davide Marello. A lanky, well-mannered fellow, he has an impeccable pedigree, having worked for Gucci and Armani, which means he knows something when it comes to tailoring. Marello’s calm demeanor somehow seemed to permeate this collection, which was presented in the customary Milanese gilded salon. “I love a well-worn look, the patina that time layers over objects revealing their soul and fading their colors,” he said backstage. This sentimental vision translated into hyper-soft tailored jackets; dusters and suits of a slightly slim, contemporary fit—the signature lightness of Boglioli’s materials was enhanced by innovative treatments and textures. The luxe factor had a quiet, understated quality—but thankfully, no sense of nostalgia. Afrissonwas added by a printed silk pajama—a must-have piece that Instagram celebrities seem to be living in at the moment—worn under an elongated coat. A few women’s looks were thrown in for good measure, of theI-borrowed-it-from-my-boyfriend’s-closetvariety. Even if that concept was a bit predictable, those pieces looked promising, complementing a men’s lineup, which, as the show notes stated, “doesn’t chase novelty at all costs.”
17 January 2016
It hardly counts as wanton wardrobe promiscuity, but Jay Vosoghi has detected a loosening of the ties that once kept the Boglioli man wedded to a go-to silhouette. "We definitely have more flexibility to play with, more agility. I think now people will dress with a fluid trouser for one look and then maybe a suit that is very tailored. There is less conformity and more mixing up," said the designer. Which is why for some looks in this vaguely '70s (whoa, brown and yellow), softly tropical-touched collection, Vosoghi paired a soft-chested, tailored-shouldered, longer-hemmed, and higher-vented jacket shape with what he called a "palazzo trouser"—higher, wider, drapier. For others he kept the jackets shorter with a trouser that was full above the knee but narrow below it.The colors and fabrics were somewhat bold as well, especially a blue-piped and contra-colored shirt in bordeaux silk inspired by South American '70s soccer stripes, and a soft, bottle-green suede jacket over more bordeaux. There were also open-weave knit polos, summer foulards, a pukka printed resin-coated silk windbreaker, broken eveningwear (jacquard jackets and linen pants), and matchy-matchy printed cotton-linen short shorts and a short-sleeve shirt. All were ingredients in Vosoghi's convincing recipe for dandified deconstruction.
20 June 2015
Jay Vosoghi broke an arm on the slopes over the holidays; he was cut up by a snowboarder. However, even thus disadvantaged, Boglioli's men's design director had a firm grasp of his Fall '15 aesthetic. "It's the Milan bourgeoisie from the '60s—a bohemian, relaxed feel," said the designer. This hazily assumed collective memory that back in the day Lombardy's great and good were unanimously attired with a modernist-meets-Oscar Wilde loucheness seems suspicious, but whether myth or not, it got Vosoghi fired up. This was a rich and deep collection from a brand that not long ago was known primarily for its unstructured blazers. Teal, orange, and vicuña (the color, not the beast) fought it out in an opening section notable for shortened dart-less jackets in shaved velvet and French (aka jumbo) cord trousers. Outerwear roomy enough to call a studio apartment in some cities fell straight but acquired shape through fastidious belting. One dégradé jacket—sfumato, Vosoghi called it—was perhaps dandy-only, but otherwise this collection's boldest statements were in the whispered frictions of textures and pattern, before a retreat into the gloomy comfort of grays.
17 January 2015
Under the direction of designer Jay Vosoghi, Boglioli is developing into a brand that can do more than just make those coveted unstructured blazers. Today the soft, hand-stitched jackets were still present, but Vosoghi added a cohesive sensibility to the line, as well as many new, just as covetable pieces.This time around the highlight was on bottom, not on top. In search of a more relaxed look and feel to the collection, Vosoghi crafted what might just be the perfect pleated trousers—straight and relaxed, with just a bit of extra volume on top. Now seems like a good time to shake off the pleated-pants hangover many of us still have from the nineties. That's not to say the jackets weren't just as good as ever, crafted in Irish linen, jacquard, piqué, silk, and terrycloth. Vosoghi nodded to the seventies throughout with bigger lapels, pajama-like safari jackets, colorful stripes, and trim Bermuda shorts.Perhaps the most impressive item was the slightly structured wool and silk suit, made with no visible stitching for a clean, minimal appearance—somewhat of a departure for the brand that once helped make the hand-stitched look a status symbol for young sartorially minded fellas. It proved that Boglioli has more than one trick up its unlined sleeve.
22 June 2014
Boglioli is the latest Italian suiter to make moves. Before this season, it had shown its collections, to appreciative if less press-generating audiences, at Pitti Uomo. "Pitti should be for new and emerging brands," said designer Jay Vosoghi, a veteran of Polo Ralph Lauren, whose appointment last year also seems to signal new energy. "For us, Milan presents a better platform."Milan served as both inspiration and platform this season. Vosoghi was thinking of Milan in the sixties, when it was a hub of industrial design. "The company was born in this period," he said, "and it's my favorite period in design." What that amounted to was that, alongside more traditional suiting—all with Boglioli's soft-shouldered, nearly boneless swing—there was a substantial effort to offer more avant-garde fare. "Milan bohemia," Vosoghi called one section of his tableaux presentation, where tailored jackets in rich teal and vivid plaids were accented with pleated denim and Japanese-textile scarves, a patterned cardigan was shown over a waistcoat, and a garment-dyed parka was inspired by a vintage horseman's jacket.More comfortable in manse than stables was an evening section that included a three-piece tuxedo in pashmina cashmere. Boglioli does high-end well. But the most interesting areas here were the ones further afield in Milanese bohemia. With a new U.S. showroom just completed, it could be coming soon to a new store near you.
11 January 2014