Aspesi’s Lawrence Steele on Making the Most of this Fashion Moment

The Business of Fashion Podcast

The Business of Fashion

Fashion & Beauty, Business, Arts

4.6 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2021

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Milan-based, American designer speaks with Tim Blanks about how he plans to introducing the cult brand’s enduring values to a new global audience.

When Lawrence Steele was named creative director at Aspesi in November, it was a home-coming of sorts. The American designer consulted for the Milan-based label for 13 years before departing in March 2017 to join Marni as associate creative director. Now, he’s been tasked with introducing the cult label founded in 1969 by Alberto Aspesi to a new global audience, while remaining true to its distinctive identity and ethos which Steele says are suited for this moment of reflection and reset.

On this week’s episode of The BoF Podcast, Lawrence Steele speaks with editor-at-large Tim Blanks as he debuts his first collection for Aspesi:

Steele is looking to technology to help Aspesi get big international traction, while retaining its niche insider vibe. The brand debuted on WeChat and Weibo in April, and expects to launch on Tmall in September. “I think today with the world, how it’s opened up so vastly through technology, there’s something quaint about [Aspesi] being a small brand, but there’s something very exciting about taking the values of the brand out into the world.”
When it comes to fashion, retaining an authentic brand identity can’t mean standing still; it’s a constant balance to honour traditions and remain relevant. “It’s very easy if you step back and you think about the long run to see what lasts and to gauge what’s happening,” said Steele. “But you have to have the culture of being able to look at it from above and not being caught up in the world of what fashion really is, which is change, because fashion by nature is change, it’s the fashion of the moment.”
Steele sees the pandemic as an opportunity to reset the fashion industry and do away with wasteful season cycles and excessive production. “My hope is that what we draw from this is that we have found other creative ways of communicating, of reaching each other, of creating through the technology that was around us all along.”

Lawrence Steele, Master of the Long Run

In Milan, a Return to Tradition

#BoFLIVE: Engaging the Gen-Z Shopper

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Clothes are an easy way to kind of introduce yourself to the world when you've just arrived.
0:10.0	That language to me was what I've always been about, the power of identity, and how clothes are an extension of the self, your best self that you want to put to the world.
0:23.6	There are so many different ways that you can speak about core values and you can reach
0:28.6	millions of niches at one time. Being a secret in doing things well, but reaching the far corners
0:35.6	of the earth, I think. That's an exciting prospect.
0:43.5	Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion. Welcome to the BOF podcast.
0:49.3	It's Friday, June 18th. This week, Lawrence Steele made his debut and his return to Aspeze, the Italian brand
0:57.6	where he first started his career after arriving in Milan in the mid-1980s. He talks to Tim Blanks
1:03.3	about his journey from Rising Star to closing down his business, to working behind the scenes with
1:08.1	Mrs. Prada and alongside his partner Francescoco Riesu, at Marni,
1:12.1	and what it's like to be back at Aspizzi, where his journey first began.
1:15.9	Here's Lawrence Steele, Inside Fashion.
1:20.6	Congratulations, Lawrence, on your new gig with Espizi.
1:24.6	Thank you very much. I'm very happy.
1:26.6	Doesn't this kind of bring up a full circle, create a full circle, didn't you?
1:33.3	Yes.
1:34.3	Yeah, I worked there when I was doing my own collection.
1:38.3	Mr. Aspese was helping me finance my own business.
1:43.3	So it's a bit of a return.
1:45.8	Yes, it's like a kind of going back to my past
1:49.0	and having the opportunity to correct my sense.
1:52.8	Now, what's coming back, well, I should say moving forward.
	...

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