Let’s discover whit the Creative Director Raffaele Caldarelli, a total look brand that is growing internationally.
Tell us about your professional background before Antony Morato
I started working on women managing a structure that produced collections for other companies, this helped me a lot in understanding the needs of contemporary fashion and the innovations in terms of materials, combinations of fabrics and details of the finished product. When I founded Antony Morato in 2007, I felt the need to create an individual project: I transferred the knowledge acquired from the experience with the female market adapting it to the needs of contemporary male fashion by developing my personal vision of fashion.
How did you launch the brand and which philosophy best describes it?
Given my previous experiences, it would have been natural and logical to start with women’s clothing, but when I launched the brand, I realized by conducting a market analysis, that in men’s fashion what was missing was a concept that had been already rooted in women’s: the smart luxury. A ‘democratic fashion’ with a product rich in fashion contents, typical of the world of luxury. This is why I decided to take the opportunity that the market offered at the time by proposing a brand that could bring the most demanding male consumers closer to fashion. Which are the most iconic and recognizable garments of your brand More than a single garment, I would speak of an approach to the total look I like to propose in each collection and that well defines the brand’s identity and aesthetics. I refer to the concept of “Soft Tailoring” which consists in combining a pair of tailored trousers with a t-shirt or a pair of sneakers. In this context, the casual garment is the ingredient that “softens” the formality of a classic look, giving a contemporary touch to the final proposal.
What is the added value of being an Italian brand?
DNA and Italian heritage, seen as consolidated traditions and cultural roots in the fashion industry, influence each Antony Morato collection in terms of respect for an elegant and unique style and a specific taste on the wearability and workmanship of the garments. Naples, in particular, is also one of the most cosmopolitan cities and our international DNA, open to new trends, originates precisely from this cultural and social melting-pot.
How is the brand evolving internationally?
After 12 years of gradual growth we now want to strengthen the markets in which we are already present – such as Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, France, China and India – in order to increase and consolidate brand awareness and sales potential. A further goal for the next few years is to guarantee complete sustainability at any company level: we have already started with an ecological approach to industry 4.0 by creating a new logistics hub in Piacenza that is completely eco-sustainable and represents an avant-garde in the sector as it has a low environmental impact guaranteed by the production of energy through magnetism. A small preview on the next collection The fall winter 2020/2021 collection reinvents the metropolitan look thanks to a mix of innovation and reinterpretation of the brand’s DNA. Spacing between four fashion themes, each with a precise inspiration – from punk / grunge to sartorial sport in a college key – the collection does not renounce the brand’s heritage, with the Timeless line, which offers contemporary elegance, made of minimal and references to the retro world.
What can you tell us for 2020?
Our main goal is to shorten the distance between brand and consumer more and more. Precisely for this reason we thought of giving life to a new way of presenting our collections that is innovative and that represents a moment of encounter between stakeholders and the final consumer. On January 7, 2020 we will host an evening dedicated to the combination of tradition and modernity. At the Auditorium Santo Stefano al Ponte, we will unveil the new autumn collection in an unusual way: a videomapping representation in which the contemporary and underground mood, typical of the brand’s heritage, will be reinterpreted thanks to details and inspirations that refer to the tailoring tradition of the past. A new project that we hope will have continuity for the coming seasons.
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