310There’s an exquisitely embellished T-shirt hem sticking out from
underneath Stefano Pilati’s beige cashmere rollneck. He has
paired it with beige shorts worn over white long johns cut at
the knee, and black wellies. “I don’t love one or the other,” he
says, talking about women’s and menswear. “I love the ‘between’
space now. It’s intriguing, it’s challenging, it’s unknown.”
His outfit incarnates the spirit of Random Identities, the clothing line that
the cult-inspiring 54-year-old designer launched independently in 2017. Named
for its disregard of gender-conforming dress codes, it embodies the identity
politics of our time. In January, 14 months after his first presentation in Montreal,
Pilati staged a show during Pitti Immagine in Florence. Hallowed menswear
ground since the 1970s, the fashion fair was the ideal stage for the designer to
communicate his disruptive message, with all the gender-fluid casting and
non-binary styling it called for. “I promote my brand as a menswear brand, but
what does that mean, really?” Pilati reflects.
“I design stuff that I wear, that comes from my past, so I cannot call it
womenswear. Un-definition, I think, is the beauty of today: undefined beauty.”
His home in Berlin contains the physical evidence of the past he is referring >Between excess and rigour, between male and female, Stefano Pilati
has built a brand without a blueprint. Anders Christian Madsen meets
him, while his friends Kate Moss and MJ Harper model his designs.
Photographs by Nikolai von Bismarck. Styling by Kate PhelanIn-betweenD AY S03-20-WELL-Random-Identities_1865757.indd 310 08/01/2020 14:55