313to: a notoriously extensive archive he calls
his wardrobe, large parts of which are made
up of the clothes he designed as creative
director of Yves Saint Laurent from 2004
until 2012, and of Ermenegildo Zegna from
2013 to 2016. While those bodies of work
paid respect to the brands’ founding designers,
Pilati – who established himself working
for Giorgio Armani and Prada in the 1990s- defined a creative signature for himself
suspended between the poles of stark
modernism and dazzling glamour. When
he left Zegna in early 2016, his rumoured
next power move never materialised. “Nobody
wants to work with me. I can’t work for
someone else, either,” he says. “I could when
I was younger, but fashion helped me open
up, to create and build my personality. So,
I care about all the aspects of it. And for that
reason, there’s no CEO who wants to deal
with me. I’m very much by myself and I’m
enjoying it so much. It’s beyond.”
In an elegantly dilapidated house in north-
east London, he has spent the day posing with
two fellow free spirits, Kate Moss and the Berlin-based
Jamaican dancer MJ Harper. “They are probably two of the
people in my life that I love the most, and for me that’s an
achievement. I’m a very lonely person.” Moss’s constant state
of evolution mirrors the way he wants his brand to be perceived,
Pilati says, while Harper exudes both the grace and strength
traditionally attributed to the gender-specific binaries fused
under Random Identities. “Kate broke all the beauty standards
of the ’90s, and now MJ is doing the same thing.”
If Pilati feels lonely, it’s because there’s no one quite like
him. The Milanese designer, once one of the most powerful
creative directors in the fashion establishment, is building
a brand without a blueprint. Not only genderless, Random
Identities drops its collections when Pilati wants to, puts on
a show when he feels like it, and – perhaps most abnormally
in the current fashion climate – hits an accessible price point.
“I feel uncomfortable with the idea of the new generation
spending so much money on clothes,” he says. “Spend it on
things that are more important. Invest in your career, travel,
read, go to university, or whatever you want.” The new
generations have a special place in Pilati’s heart. When he
and his boyfriend, Christian Schoonis, tired of their home
in Paris in the early 2010s, they decided to move to Berlin.
That decision thrust Pilati, who says he had never even
been to a gay club before, into Berlin’s hedonistic nightlife,
introducing him to young fashion fans whose lives and styles
would feed an aesthetic that became Random Identities.
“There’s so much affection and respect. I listen to them and
I care about them. In my work, I’m trying to give them all
my experience in an accessible way. What is refreshing is
that, naturally, they taught me, too. Maybe it was already
within me and they pushed it,” he says, noting that the kids’
natural approach to genderlessness “opened my mind
completely”. Constantly encouraged to start his own line
after leaving Zegna, Pilati started shaping his vision.
“Apparently, it seems – I don’t want to sound immodest –
that I have a lot of style,” he smiles.
Since his Yves Saint Laurent days, he’s been lauded for
his personal look, which morphs masculine elegance with
haute couture elements. “To me it’s quite natural. I decided
that if I was going to do my own line, it would be for that
reason: to bring my idea of style,” he says. “It was refreshing
seeing a new generation picking up on it because finally
I have the time to hang out with them. When I was working
for Yves Saint Laurent, the only young people were the
assistant of the assistant of your assistant. You saw them in
the corridor but you never talked to them.” Today, Pilati
connects with his followers on Instagram, while the club
scene continues to inspire him. “I take the progressiveness
of Berlin as a form of anti-conformism. It really opens your
mind. You’re like, wow; all those taboos and boundaries just
drop. That is inevitably a good feeling. Anything goes.”
Berlin has injected Random Identities with a heightened
sense of the lasciviousness that was always present in Pilati’s
work, which is now often rooted in the community that adores
it. “Some of the clothes I design are a club uniform that gives
you style options and functions. Sometimes I’m at Berghain,
and I’m like, ‘Girl, I’m going to design something for you
because I can’t look at you like that,’” he laughs. “‘I know what
you want to do, but it’s not working!’” Now, he says, he’s going
to evolve Random Identities into a brand that will serve a
progressive future. And if rumours that he might take over
Armani one day persist in the industry, he’s not fuelling
them. Recently asked the same question, neither did Giorgio
Armani. “What did he say? ‘Don’t ask me again’?” Pilati
quips. “Because we laugh about it. I love Mr Armani.” n“NO CEO
WANTS TO
DEAL WITH
ME. I’M
VERY MUCH
BY MYSELF
AND I’M
ENJOY ING
IT SO MUCH”03-20-WELL-Random-Identities_1865757.indd 313 08/01/2020 14:59