Luca Magliano on ‘Being Seen,’ Life After LVMH Prize Contest
MILAN — “It’s a beautiful feeling to be seen.”
The simple yet emotional speech given after receiving the Karl Lagerfeld Special Jury Prize at the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers last week captured the whole essence of Magliano’s founder Luca Magliano — and a little bit more.
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It also encompassed the hopes and ambitions of a large portion of Italian emerging designers, too. Differently from the American Dream, the Italian one isn’t based solely on equality of opportunity, but often requires external validation to succeed or simply be considered and appreciated on national soil.
No wonder Magliano pointed to being seen as the main takeaway of his LVMH Prize experience, describing it as “the most significant achievement one could hope for an author.”
“For me [this acknowledgement] means a big pat on the back but also the public and official promise never to betray myself. I’m convinced the prize is not a magic potion so I’m not hoping for anything miraculous to happen: I just hope it translates into more strength,” he told WWD ahead of his label’s spring 2024 runway show here Sunday.
The brand has been gaining increasing heat on the Milan scene in the last few seasons. Those who felt drawn to it since the beginning or before it landed in front of the jury comprising the likes of Jonathan Anderson, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Nicolas Ghesquière and more didn’t miss the chance to voice their support for Magliano in the final stages of the contest nor to underscore with pride their loyalty after he scooped up the prize.
A fashion design graduate of Bologna’s Libera Università delle Arti, Magliano cut his teeth on Alessandro Dell’Acqua’s team in Milan prior to moving back to Bologna in 2013 to work with designer Manuela Arcari on the Ter et Bantine fashion line. In 2015, he decided to go solo and launched the I Was Naked independent women’s brand, which has since been discontinued. The following year, Arcari, who is also the president of Arcari e Co., offered him the chance to produce his own line under license and the Magliano brand was born.
The winner of the ninth edition of Vogue Italia’s talent contest Who Is on Next? Uomo, he unveiled its fall 2018 collection with a runway show at Florence’s Dogana venue during Pitti Uomo and then joined the official Milan Men’s Fashion Week calendar.
His style and approach to fashion has evolved ever since. What started as bold collections filled with references to the ‘80s, different subcultures, “small-town boys” from his hometown of Bologna and occasional tongue-in-cheek and irreverent prints matured into soulful, vintage-looking menswear imbued with charming tailoring and a sense of color.
The fall 2023 collection paraded in Milan in January struck a particularly emotional chord with its rustic, live-in familiarity and clothes exalting humble fashion archetypes, such as the worker jacket, army-surplus coats and safety footwear. The press notes confirmed the hero of Magliano to be the worker and the collection to be “a tribute to what is most chic: the fatigue, ‘il travaglio,’ as they say in dialect.”
Shining a light on this different dimension of the country, far from the glamorized versions or the usual “La Dolce Vita” postcard-like image is what further contributed to the collection’s appeal and the increasing interest in the brand. Rather than pointing to aspirational clothes and lifestyles, the designer showed the beauty in realism, in an exercise that sort of winked to the quintessentially Italian neorealism film movement.
“At the beginning the design was very loud: we had the need to make ourselves heard. Then we gradually lowered our voice, but trying never to compromise the intensity. Now we have reached a sort of chaotic minimalism that I really like,” said Magliano, who added he is inspired by “many things, especially if they are banal and fragile but suggest a great sense of mystery.”
Asked about the pivotal moment in this creative process and of his career in general, Magliano pointed to the two collections developed during the pandemic. “That traumatic moment for us could not fail to translate into a turning point,” he recalled.
In addition to the LVMH Prize contest that brought international visibility, there was another milestone in the brand’s history. At the end of last year, the company sold a minority stake to fashion business accelerator Underscore District to support the next stage of its growth, as reported.
As a result of the deal, in the first half of 2023 “we opened the online store and revamped [the website], which we want to become an asset of our business strategy,” said Magliano. The brand is positioned in the affordable luxury segment and, in addition to the new e-commerce, is carried by around 60 retailers globally.
With an expanded team, Magliano plans to hire people for his studio in Bologna and venture more into womenswear.
The Karl Lagerfeld Prize’s grant of 200,000 euros and a one-year mentorship program from the LVMH Group will come in handy in the process, which will also include a bigger focus on accessories since these “help give even more complexity to our project.”
In the meantime, Magliano is gearing up to unveil his spring 2024 collection during Milan Men’s Fashion Week. While mum about the details, he said the evocative — and cryptic — brief for the season was “answered prayers.”
A key part of the collection will feature seven T-shirts, “which we call ‘prayers/thanksgiving’, dedicated to simple things that are important to us.”
Although themes will be interpreted in an ironic way, Magliano wanted these items not to seem like merch, opting to craft them in silk jersey. “Their purpose is to say something important in a simple way,” he concluded.
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