In days of collective fear of global epidemics and environmental disasters, C.P. Company is promoting optimism. For the launch of its f/w 2020-21 offerings, C.P. Company has debuted Next Landscape, a concept and a collection that aims to represent a hopeful image of a future urban environment and nature. C.P. Company's president Lorenzo Osti explained how the brand is evolving while celebrating an iconic jacket model launched in 2000.
What characterizes C.P. Company's f/w 2020-21 collection?
In 2000, together with designer Moreno Ferrari, C.P. Company created a range called Urban Protection Metropolis, a series of pieces devised to protect wearers from a dystopian future. For instance, they incorporated an anti-smog mask. Twenty years later we have looked back at this concept. Paul Harvey, our creative director, and Alessandro Pungetti, were struck by some images in a recent documentary showing the abandoned and now overgrown city of Chernobyl. C.P. Company has created this f/w 2020-21 collection comprised of a series of structural elements that together represent the entire spectrum what of this hypothetical next landscape looks like today. Despite the disaster that we human beings have caused, nature, 40 years after, has grown amazingly and looks alive and recovered. We surely wanted to reproduce all this despite the fact this throws a very controversial message.
It is definitely a hopeful message as nature wins as a result of it being stronger than the damage that we caused. At the same time we cannot think that the future will be idyllic. This was the theme of the collection we wanted to focus on. For this reason we presented a few items out of the whole collection inside special cocooning nests. In terms of new materials we started a great collaboration with Gore-Tex Xenia and Infinium. We also offered a series of high-performance items, though, as always, we have also introduced some innovation as Kan-D, a special nylon yarn whose section is not circular, but flat, therefore the resulting fabric's surface and its color are vibrant and especially light-reflecting. We also launched a special fabric made with Dyneema, the highest resistant anti-abrasion fiber for its high weight-resistance ratio. As it cannot be dyed, we created a special jacket whose creased, semitransparent and light reflecting aspects are unique. Moreover, from the iconic 2000s Metropolis jacket we took inspiration for a similar pocket system repeated, retuned, concentrated and expanded into new ergonomic formations throughout the collection.
In 2019 we opened two new flagships–one in Beijing and one in Milan. In 2020 by the end of March we will inaugurate another one in Amsterdam. For 2021, instead, we have a very ambitious program for celebrating C.P. Company’s 50th anniversary. We are planning a series of initiatives together with the opening of three more stores in London, Seoul and Paris. My majority partner Pete Wang and I had a much more pressing and faster growth road map in mind, though now we prefer to slow down a bit and enjoy this brand's gradual growth. He told me: “I don't want to sell this brand. I want to keep it for my whole life.” I believe him as he is not a financial investor but an industrial one. He knew the brand since the ’80s and chased me as he wanted to buy it for a long time.
How is C.P. Company performing?
As the brand is publicly listed in the Hong Kong Stock Market Exchange it’s too early to give information on our sales. Though, since when we bought it in 2015 we grew 40% year on year. This year we grew 45%.
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