Random Identities (Q7945)
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Random Identities is a fashion house from BOF.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Random Identities |
Random Identities is a fashion house from BOF. |
Statements
The intersection of fashion and athletics is a topical one that Stefano Pilati addressed in a roundabout way in his latest Random Identities collection. “I’ve been excited to tap into the sport, therefore Pop,” said the designer in an email exchange. He’s been helped in this mission by New Era, a 100+ year old American company that works with the National Football League and Major League Baseball. With them, Pilati developed a varsity jacket with the RI brand name writ huge. It was lined with a print of a woman and the motto “If I had a hammer I’d smash the patriarchy.” (In this context a bat might have been more on point). He also made baseball-style caps with New Era. These had bonnet strings so they can be worn cross body or hanging down the back in addition to on the head. This was a big accessories season for RI. Not only did Pilati pair with Sebago to update the classic penny loafer, he also debuted eyewear with two dramatic styles named for musicians Ray Charles and Roy Orbison.It’s possible, in fact, to think of this collection as a playlist that covers American music from the ’50s to the ’80s. (When I suggested this connection to sound, Pilati mentioned early Run DMC. ) With clothes, as with music, one’s tastes can be catholic. There were a lot of options here. The square cut of a gray suit looked mid-century in inspiration, while an asymmetric blazer was more New Wave. Western meets ’70s leisurewear included chain-print shirts with extra long collar points and check pants with piping. Pilati’s talent is such that he transcends and remixes his references in a way that is distinctively his.The look book segues from more dressed up to casual. In the latter category are jeans (in washed blue denim and railroad stripe) that use the grain in three ways (vertical, horizontal, and diagonal). In the showroom, the brand’s popular Berlin Baggies style had been abbreviated to short length, but retained the operable zipper on the center back seam. It’d be a tease to wear with one of RI’s bodysuit shirts. A pink terry and woven check work jacket paired with full-legged pants and accessorized with a cap had a street smart attitude about it.Never afraid to speak his mind, the designer embroidered the following query on one of the caps: “Why not make fashion shady again?” Asked to elaborate, he wrote: “Shady as a way to criticize, to get better in whatever context. Fashion, in my opinion, if not selective, loses its appeal. It’s not a question of luxury vs.
accessibility, it’s more a question of how you use it; favoring it at any cost as a unique way of being that projects a deep understanding of your body and identity.” Dance to your own drum, in other words.
26 June 2024
Substituteheortheyforshein ZZ Top’s famous lyrics—“She got legs / She knows how to use them”—and you come directly to one of Stefano Pilati’s preoccupations for his fall 2024 Random Identities collection. Gams, pins, sticks, call them what you will, but they’re on show in the designer’s interpretation of formal, skin-baring Bermuda-ish shorts.His hem raising is the result, in part, of observing what’s happening on the street: “A lot of young people right now, boys especially, want to show legs, which was something that only women did,” Pilati noted on a call. Then there’s an experience he had this summer: “I was invited to a party, and I was on the phone with a friend of mine, and I was like, ‘Are you wearing long or short?’” he related. “I found myself actually thinking like a woman would. Should I wear a long dress or a short dress, no matter if it is evening or day? And that is something that stayed with me.”Dark gray flannel shorts formed a suit with a wide yet soft-shoulder jacket gathered lushly at the back, a very ’80s shape that dovetails with Pilati’s New Romantic mood. That theme continued in a raglan-sleeve sweatshirt with elastic at the wrists and neck, creating delicate ruffles that wink at that British scene without lingering in the past. Pilati was busy discovering newness on the Emerald Isle; he enlisted Lux Gillespie to design the trompe l’oeil T-shirts. A T-shirt printed with a loose bow tie was paired with a slim-line gray flannel suit with a gently curving narrow lapel and narrow, straight shoulders attached to the body with a pleat rather than the “usual padding.”One of Pilati’s missions with Random Identities is to eschew gender-normative binaries. At the same time the focus on craft and technique is absolute; a lot of thought goes into these designs, some of which carry symbolism. Take the low-waist silhouette on a T-shirt with a printed belt and a sweater with a belted drop waist. The double waist is something Pilati explored in his collaborativepre-falllineup for Fendi. His preoccupation with movement can ideologically be connected back to the Jazz Age, when drop-waist flapper dresses freed women’s legs long before minis did. A documentary on Mickey Mouse inspired a retro photo print (which Pilati says relates back to one he did of the crowd at Woodstock for a2007Yves Saint Laurent collection).
As to gesture, the tips of Pilati’s pantoufle shoes arch up toward the thigh; in contrast a collar is cut a bit lower so that it dips forward. A slender tip pocket fits a banknote and gets around fiddling with a wallet. At Random Identities, the pursuit of elegance is an open-and-shut case.
22 January 2024
Stefano Pilati is much admired for his talent and his innate sprezzatura. A sort of punk heir to Robert de Montesquiou, Pilati walked the runway at Louis Vuitton and showed up in Anonymous Club’s lookbook; he also makes a ghost appearance in his own press materials for Random Identities.“Frankly, a lot of people relate to the way that I put together the clothes. So it’s me trying the collection on basically and having someone take a picture. I didn’t want to be in it, but I wanted to give the right attitude to the clothes,” the designer explained on a call. Pilati’s face and appendages are silhouetted out of these images (all the better to insert your identity, get it?), but his gestures animate the clothes. There are even suggestions for accessorizing; he has a taste for sparkly chandelier earrings. “It’s nothing that was meant to be provocative, it’s more fun and I do think it brings even more focus on the clothes. You can see them in action, but at the same time, they’re very pure and essential, and you understand that that attitude is made out of three pieces.”Frivolity ill-fits the mood of the time, making the idea of getting back to essentials fitting. That approach is foundational to Random Identities. A mission- and clothes-driven label, it’s niche by design—quiet and oh so seductive. Take the first look. A car coat in a technical fabric that drapes beautifully, it looks classic but feels a bit different. That’s because, the designer says, “everything is raised up so it looks like the pockets are a bit too high, and there are only three buttons.” Track pants and shorts that borrow from traditional khakis have a raw, curved hem that tenderly draws the eye to the thigh, while jeans with slits above the back of the knee also whisper “follow me, chase my secrets.”In keeping with their ski wear inspiration, a pair of gray trousers with black geometric insets has a sturdy, crisp feeling, but overall there is a soft, pajama-like ease to the collection. Of note are a pair of pleated, creased, and tapered pistachio-colored pants in a poly-silk cady material that break away from the expected. “That specifically is a silhouette that refers to the last glam moment, the beginning of the 1980s, when the shoulders got big and the pants, they had big pleats and were tapered on the bottom and [were worn] with pointy shoes with a kitten heel,” noted Pilati.Pilati works with deadstock and doesn’t create large collections.
Based in Berlin, he’s living, and working, slightly outside of the fashion system. While his clothes are designed for anyone who wants to wear them, exploring various aspects of queerness is one of his missions. While creating this collection, he was studying the history of the culture, and the stills in some of the backgrounds are pulled from the documentaries he watched. “I wanted to say let’s not forget where we are, [and that] history repeats itself,” he explained. If Pilati has his way, those revolutions will spin out into evolution.
13 July 2023
The idea behind Random Identities, explains Stefano Pilati, is that you anybody can make it their own, even to the point of writing your own name in the blanks on the label. “Excerpts” of Pilati’s past writings appear in the brand’s fall collection. There’s a priest-like sweater, for example, and a barrel shaped coat that bears some relation to his work for Saint Laurent, but there’s no doubt that this is an “alt” lineup that carries with it some the spirit of Berlin, where the brand is based.Pilati wanted to put a spotlight on queer culture this season; “I think it’s a conversation that definitely should keep going, the designer said. There’s a jockstrap-like bag of vegan leather, an embroidered bra logo on sweatshirts, and jackets bearing a Queer Culture logo, an iteration on club graphics.Pilati lavishes a lot of attention to details. Some pleats on pants are inset with mesh, and a sort of Spage Age coat has buttoned panels at the hem that can be worn open or closed. He’s chosen recycled service fabrics to work with. For some reason, Vincent Gallo popped into mind, probably something with the cut and length of the pants—which is sure to be an asset for the hipsters and club goers that the collection seems aimed at. Pilati retains his deft touch and the cuts make these clothes truly versatile. In a brown jumpsuit from the offering worn over a white shirt with an ascot, the designer had all the elegance of Boldini’s painting of Count Robert de Montesquiou.
30 January 2023