Ideas from Massimo Osti

Product Information

Tracing the career of the iconic designer Massimo Osti from Bologna, this book examines the renowned brands he created, from Chester Perry to C. P. Company and Left Hand and inventor of the industry-shifting garment dyeing technique, Raso Gommato and numerous other fabrics still in use today, 20-30 years on; of the intellectual designer who worked from Bologna all his life, inspired as much by the 35000 piece historical garment archive he assembled in his studio as the unique artistic and political ferment of the city throughout the '70s, '80s. 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treasure trove – a beautiful production, sumptuously photographed, full of iconic images and containing many previously unpublished images and stories.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 Ideas from Massimo Osti traces the career of the visionary designer from Bologna, presenting his various brands, from the early silkscreen prints with Chester Perry, to his worldwide success with C.

The most important of these characters is Massimo Osti, because he was the one that founded the brand in 1982. Massimo Osti was a man of ideas, full of concepts that mattered, not layers of varnish over nothing – and he worked hard, if playfully, to make them happen. We are indebted to the Bologna-born designer, active from the Seventies to the first decade of the third Millennium, for the invention of the garment dyeing technique, of rubberised satin and countless fabrics still in use after thirty years. New Stone Island continues to be produced and bought, but true obsessives collect vintage Osti designs, such as the items featured in this story. Ideas From Massimo Osti is a must-have for lovers of sportswear, who want to learn more about the highly respected designer who brought us some of the most iconic pieces of clothing and materials.

That spark, that ability to talk to the public and create a reaction, stayed with him all along his career. The book documents the period from 1978-1986 and it's essentially the best xerox book you will ever see. As Osti once said, “I like to play with forms which don’t belong to the history of the 20-year-olds of today using materials which were unknown to the 20-year-olds of yesteryear.

A single module can be worn as a highly water-resistant poncho or, when tied and pegged, can be used as a small shelter. Stone Island has never been silly or predictably fashionable, and the boldness it oozes is palpable.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. Crowned the most important man of 1990s menswear by Arena Homme +, Massimo Osti (1944–2005) was one of the most respected and imitated designers of his generation, whose innovations confounded the rules of the industry and created the fabrics of today. Its a real masterpiece, both as a document, and as a reminder that Osti started as a graphic designer. He reinvented the once-codified iconography of parkas, field jackets, riding coats and blousons, which he constantly spliced, dissected, reassembled – but never distorted. He did not do high fashion but the clothing he invented at his labels Stone Island and CP Company – bold and futuristic at the former, soft and welcoming at the latter – have lost none of their power in the three or four decades since their launch.

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. The father of sportswear – or “urban armor” – set the requisite standards of a modern lifestyle brand. Ideas from Massimo Osti tells the story of the birth and development of the formal and textile innovations of the creator of the clothing brands C. Massimo Osti’s oeuvre remains so relevant today that it almost needs to be written about in the present tense to be properly dissected.P. Company, amongst others, as well as the most important advertising work executed by Massimo for these brands, but also a lesser-known side of the man's work: his political commitment and his many ventures into other professional arenas. Working intensively with fabric treatments like dyes and stonewashes, he mastered the art of giving clothes an intensely worn, but not destroyed patina.

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 other materials such as rubber flax, the “Ice Jacket” that changes colors with the temperature, or “Technowool,” a wool and nylon wear-resistant “urban armor. In fact, you might well be wearing something he invented a long time ago, even though he didn’t actually design it – and that is a genuine achievement. The functional revolution of the 90s and the hooliganism culture in Britain is unfathomable without the iconic brands of Stone Island and Chester Perry (C.Massimo Osti collected something like 35,000 pieces during his career, and 5,000 of them are still preserved in his archive. This first section charts Massimo Osti's progression as a designer through the brands and labels he created, from the beginnings with Chester Perry to the extraordinary growth of C. Berardi proclaims that this “was our communal strut towards a future, a future which already no longer existed. Massimo Osti was having none of that; he was always looking ahead, taking the best from the past, but making it defiantly of the now. Used by various armies through the 19th century, the simple but versatile canvas can be used in numerous ways.