When Mario-Luca Carlucci and Peter Strateas founded fashion label Strateas.Carlucci in 2013, they had a clear vision in mind.
“The idea is about creating collections that are timeless but also having this modern approach to how you dress, with wardrobe staples that we build upon every season,” Carlucci says.
The collections feature familiar touchpoints of strong tailoring and bold silhouettes in both men’s and women’s fashion, but that’s just the starting point.
“From the first instance of seeing or touching or feeling, there has to be that connection, that immediate spark that draws people in,” Carlucci says of the importance of first impressions. “Then beyond that it’s about discovery.”
Here’s how Carlucci and Strateas go about their craft.
The pursuit of meaning
That idea of discovery drives Carlucci to create deeper messaging within his garments. The current Strateas.Carlucci collection – Fantôme, which means “ghost” or “spirit” in French – explores how personal meaning can be layered within practical fashion pieces.
“[Coming out of Covid], that collection was about the idea of missing people and missing those things that we’re used to,” says Carlucci.
The meaning within the collection is ghost-like in itself; it’s there in the corner of your eye, and you’ll see it if you want to.
“With the collection we were looking at the details, the subtleties in things you’d overlook, so it’s based around perspective,” says Carlucci. “When you’re taking something quite abstract and trying to bring it into something tangible for the viewer, the beauty of it is people can interpret things like that in their own way and have their own emotional connections.”
Creating impressions with binary ideas
A running theme across Strateas.Carlucci collections is the comparison of binary concepts.
“We love this idea of opposites and pulling those things together,” says Carlucci. “It sometimes thematically seems a little absurd, but for us it’s bringing those elements that wouldn’t necessarily go together that makes something really beautiful and something special.”
In the Fantôme collection, the binary is the idea of conformity versus identity, which contrasts the geographical disconnections created by Covid with the migrant backgrounds of both Carlucci and Strateas.
“It’s the idea of missing and the concept of wanting to connect and reconnect with people or loved ones,” says Carlucci. “Then tying it back to our Italian and Greek backgrounds and linking those ideas that stemmed from Covid and identity into this one theme. It’s not taking one thing at face value and saying, ‘The collection’s about red or a certain artist’. It’s a bit deeper than that.”
Impressions on a brand-sized scale
The overarching binary of Strateas.Carlucci is one shared by all artists – the balance of depth and exploration against familiarity and consistency. Even though each collection has its own unique messaging, success for Carlucci is about creating a recognisable impression as a cohesive brand beyond one season. As themes come and go, you’ll always find the same wearable fashion, as well as a commitment to using sustainably sourced and deadstock fabrics.
“We like the idea of the brand having this continuation, season in and season out. Although they are different collections, if you line them all up from start to finish it still looks like the same brand, there’s still the same story and there’s still those same elements that are carried through,” says Carlucci. “There are definitely times where we’ve deviated from that and they’re the things that haven’t worked so well so it’s, like, let’s stick to what works for us as a brand and what we’ve carved out for us in terms of a design aesthetic.”
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