Ideas from Massimo Osti

Product Information

In the following weeks you will meet a couple of interesting characters that got inspired by the brand, worked with it, made a business out of it or just deeply fell in love with it. P. Company to MO Double Use, Osti never faltered in his nonstop work ethic – right up until his death in 2005 at age 59 .

Featuring unseen images, sketches, dyeing tests and interviews, the book delves into the archive of Osti with tributes from some of the most honoured names in fashion, including Sir Paul Smith, Errolson Hugh, William Gibson and the late legendary Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani. That spark, that ability to talk to the public and create a reaction, stayed with him all along his career. Not only does “Ideas from Massimo Osti” widely and clearly illustrate the stylist and his textile inventions, it also emphasises the unquestionable capacity of this Italian pioneer to influence generations of designers with his visionary power. The book traces his story through images of Osti’s most important designs: his innovations in garment dyeing, his development of new fabrics, such as Tela Stella, inspired by the tarpaulin used to cover loads on lorries, and other materials such as rubber flax, the colour changing “Ice Jacket”, or “Technowool,” a wool and nylon wear-resistant “urban armour. Second Edition of Ideas from Massimo Osti, the 432 page monograph published by Corraini and four years in the making, is the definitive look at one of the most influential and secretly revered names in Italian fashion history (copied from the high street to high fashion, his garments are the metaphorical skeleton in the closet of many of the world's most famous designer's studios).

Even at their brightest, Stone Island or CP Company garments – outerwear, mostly – never looked brand new, stiff, glaring or garish; not even the reflective pieces came across as cold and industrial. The material was brought back a couple of time with the last entry in 2012 for a 30th Anniversary jacket, but don’t expect to see a lot of these floating about.

In the early days of Stone Island, Massimo Osti spent a lot of time working on a material that seemed more suited to the military. He started in fashion by bringing his graphic-design sensibility to a series of screen-printed T-shirts that were different from anything else at the time. For centuries, after the fall of the Roman Empire, we have been a land of little commons and little feuds, and we have always nurtured our genius loci with immense pride, trying to be as different as possible from our neighbours just a few kilometres away. Throughout his professional life, despite introducing groundbreaking innovations in techniques such as garment dyeing or wool brushing, despite using daring heat-sensitive and highly reflective fabrics, despite turning the humble down jacket into a urban staple when most people were still only using it for skiing, and despite almost immediately gaining a cult following – even if the object of the cult was the product, not its designer – Massimo Osti was never considered as one of the Italian megastars, such as Valentino, Gianni Versace or Gianfranco Ferré.The system was inspired by the fastenings on horse riding chaps produces in Italy and Osti's passion for maritime sailing.

I used to actively look for his designs and my memories are full both of pieces I did purchase – the field jackets, the incredibly supple garment-dyed shirts, and the ruby-red Shetland wool CP Company cardigan that I bought in 1992 as a freshman at university and still wear today – as well as pieces I never managed to get my hands on. His renowned, innovative items can be considered the basic structural elements of many collections of our days, proposed by styles that range from high street fashion to high fashion. Four years in the making, the book is a veritable treasure trove – a beautiful production, sumptuously photographed, full of iconic images and containing many previously unpublished images and stories.The book tells its story through images of Osti’s most important designs: his innovations in garment dyeing, his development of new fabrics inspired by the tarps truck drivers use to batten down loads, and othermaterials such as rubber flax, the “Ice Jacket” that changes colors with the temperature, or “technowool,” a wool and nylon wear-resistant “urban armor. Back in the early 1980s, with business booming, Osti had sold a majority stake in Stone Island and CP to Carlo Rivetti, the owner of Sportswear Company. Multiple security checks are also made on all transactions, to ensure the authenticity of all payments.

It was a tarpaulin made from 90% cotton, 10% polyester gauze and treated with resin, which was then dyed giving a distinct colour on each side. and the photographers credits are a who's who of the greats - Aldo Fallai, Barbieri, Toscani, Weber and so on. The section uses not only newly photographed garments from the archive but also fabric swatches, notes for the prototyping department and dye-tests to explain the story of the invention of Sportswear in unprecedented detail.

The book documents the period from 1978-1986 and it's essentially the best xerox book you will ever see.