Elisa Arienti and Feras Sobh are the creative minds behind the label La Come Di - a young label you should definitely keep an eye on. The style? A little ’80s feeling mixed with a good portion of streetwear attitude–just the right thing to spice up your assortment. SI talked with founder Elisa Arienti about her background, inspirations and the challenges of being an unknown young brand.
We are both multidisciplinary designers. I am from Italy and have a background as an art director, designer and interior designer while Feras Sobh is a Palestinian designer and illustrator. We both ended up in in the corporate world of advertising but left after a decade to express and create our own things as visual artists and fashion designers.
What does the name La Come Di mean?
It’s originally the name of a song from the Italian maestro and jazz player Paolo Conte. The words don’t have an actual meaning together, it has a personal connotation but it also sounds perfect for the type of pieces we create.
What challenges does a young, unknown label like you face? What experiences have you had there?
Every day is a challenge for small independent brands like us to break that wall and feel like the company can grow. The biggest challenge for us is not about creativity and product quality but is rather the marketing and PR push that is really hard to gain with a small, restricted budget. Another big stress is the limited access to create as many pieces we want and use the best suppliers out there. Unfortunately not all our designs make it to the production line.
We are based in Dubai because is where we started the brand and where we currently live. The brand will move with us based on where we will be in the future. The fashion scene there is big but doesn’t really explore the style we have. It’s rather more luxury-based, high ready-to-wear brands or more straight-forward streetwear brands.
What influences your sense of fashion and style? Where do you get your inspiration?
I think to be in the fashion industry you need to be deeply connected personally to fashion as a starting point. For me fashion was always a way to express myself as much as I would express it through my design work. With LCD I unified the two things I loved so it became a natural thing for me. Inspiration-wise, life and things around us is what mainly inspire any creative in the industry I think. Also everyone has their own places, things and people for inspiration when needed online or offline.
Who is La Come Di’s target group?
The bracket is a 20- to 40-year-old, most probably he/she is a creative person that loves art, music and design and can dare with something bold and colorful.
You emphasize that you want to be as genderless as possible in your collection. Why is this important to you?
Nowadays gender is really something we don’t need to consider that much especially when it comes to streetwear. People can be what they want and also our cuts, fabrics and printing allow both genders to wear most of the pieces we create. Last but not least we need to consider sustainability and avoid differentiating where we can to have less impact on the environment.
Yes, I think it will be more and more explored by many brands.
Are trends important to you? Why or why not?
Yes and no, mainly passively though. I do not use or like ALL the trends, I rather pick what is close to me or could be something as small as following a color palette. And when I say pick, it’s not even a conscious decision, you feel it within you, you perceive where the fashion world is going in that specific moment in time and apply it to your own world. Sometimes as creatives we feel where the trends are going even before they are out there for the actual public to follow. Anticipating what will happen makes us know we are going in the right direction as creatives.
Which celebrity would you like to dress?
If we talk big celebrities, probably Billie Eilish is the closest to our LCD world and would be cool to experiment something with her. On a smaller scale, names like Miranda Makaroff, Sita Bellan and Sophia Hadjipanteli are also someone I would love to collab with.
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