In a Modern
Wunderkammer
MASSIMO ALBA
Ruffled and lost in his thoughts, he wears a light velvet jacket that seems as if it were painted onto him with watercolors, soft trousers, round eyeglasses and a sincere, discrete smile. He’s late for our appointment, and welcomes us like a gust of wind: «The amazing thing today is that I am here talking with you. I hadn’t thought about it before, but coming in late and seeing you and your magazine for the first time, I am very impressed and ask myself: what else could I add to it, what could I say?» This is how we started our conversation with Massimo Alba, the creative director of the brand that shares his name.
In a Modern
Wunderkammer
We are inside his studio-showroom in Milan, in the heart of the Navigli area: this is a modern Wunderkammer, where time passes independently of the ticking of the clock, but marches to the rhythm of the memories and emotions that fill all the objects surrounding us, from books to statues, furniture pieces, couches, tables, paintings, dresses, plants… or the adventures of Sherazade and the Arabian Nights – an old edition of which has its pages glued to the walls – or the music coming out in shuffle mode from the speakers, mixing different styles and genres…. a refuge where the mind can constantly get lost and then find itself again. A place with a soul: the one that Massimo Alba infuses in his own fashion that is made up of culture, essential clothing pieces, fine tailoring, refined simplicity and exclusive details, strictly «Made in Italy», as Massimo underlines: «We created a small firm that is based on premises that are also our values: the first one is to produce everything in Italy, the second one is to produce in Italy while respecting the environment and people». The first collection we presented in 2006 consisted in twelve items for men, like a coat, a peacoat, an oversize jumper, wide trousers… conceived for a woman, his wife. Today, the Massimo Alba brand is also in Rome and New York, where it is synonymous with dandy contemporary style.
We created a small firm that is based on premises that are also our values: the first one is to produce everything in Italy, the second one is to produce in Italy while respecting the environment and people.
△ When did you decide to create your own brand?
«It happened almost naturally. For many years, I’d been a creative director in big firms, where I learned a lot. In Malo, were I had a chance to grow as a designer, as an interpreter of style and cashmere researcher, I learned that a sweater is like a hug and that you can build a space that is cozy like a home. In Ballantyne, where I spent five years working in close contact with the factory in Scotland, I have come to the opinion that the physical place is fundamental, that there are products and people that have a specific style because they have a close relationship with their territory. When this experience was over, because everything comes to an end, I felt that I needed to start again from my name, writing it as small as possible, because I was a little embarrassed. I tried to define my personal idea of taste, I found the space where we are now and I started filling it with references, moving everything I loved here: music, books, colors and pages, and little by little we created our first collections and opened the first stores».
△ What’s your favorite part of your job?
«I love the marvel of trusting others in the choice of fabrics and colors, I like letting things come to me. When I started this job, I used to collect leaves, stones, shoe laces… I used to go to dyeing plants and ask people to recreate the same color of a specific stone, or maybe I would pour water on it in order to show how that specific color could be different. I tried to recreate the intensity that I found in life, to understand how to make a thread or fabric more opaque, by washing it with a soap or by overdyeing it… at the beginning, I did a lot of attempts and experiments and I had a lot of people around that helped me to create all of these things. Today, if I have to choose between four colors, I like to see the effect they have on the people working with me».
△ What is taste?
«Taste is essential in order to have an identity. It means knowing who you are based on what you like. For me, creating my own taste zone was fundamental; it was like drawing a circle and putting inside it everything that has happened to me: from objects to encounters, men, women, things I said, things I’ve been told, movies, photographs, travels, arguments…».
△ Do you have a personal theory on colors?
«I think that everyone should discover their own relationship with colors. Some colors can make you feel uncomfortable because they make you more visible, or maybe more vulnerable, so it’s up to you to find your own path».
△ What’s your first memory connected to style?
«I was very young and I told my parents that I was going on a trip. I was 22 and went to India. I looked at the people and I saw a profound elegance. That’s where I understood that elegance is in gestures, in everything you know, you are familiar with and you own. I also think that somehow the simplest people show an incredible elegance, and can reach a very high intensity when they are completely at ease with their gestures and body. There is no superfluity, they naturally express what they are, since you don’t need to own things to have style. In this respect, I think that we live in a deeply tacky era. We see it everyday, in everything that is public today: it’s as if there has been a frightening deterioration of gestures, the only thing that emerges is a sense of attention-seeking, and in that there is a denial of elegance».
△ Your idea of style is quite romantic…
«You can keep on being romantic, and this is a word that can sometimes be disturbing or scary, because it’s like admitting one’s own fragility. I really like when I see a form of fragility in others, I think this is an element of beauty that also has to do with elegance. The most elegant people I met in my life where very mature, I would even say old».
△ What is the oldest clothing element in your wardrobe?
«It’s the tails jacket of an old black suit that my grandpa wore when he conducted the orchestra in Catania. I would love my son to wear it one day, with a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. I think that an old jacket is better than a new one. In fact, I’ve always thought that it’s better to gift someone a used sweater, one that bears the signs of a certain attitude. It’s not the size that counts, but the intensity with which you wear an item. This is what makes it yours».
△ What’s your idea of the perfect wardrobe?
«My idea is that clothes can become friends with other clothes. A person’s style consolidates when you put different things together. It takes time to build a wardrobe: to the essential items, like a black sweater, you need to gradually add other timeless items, that do not necessarily need to be new or branded. We must be able to define our style with what we choose to wear, we must not be bearers of the values of brands, as it is often seen today. We are not sandwich boards».
△ You were born in Treviso but, in a way, Milan is your city?
«I really love Milan, this is the first city where I decided to live. This was the most important discovery, a place where I feel completely at ease. My style too is linked to this city, many people tell me this even in a derogatory way, but I take it as a compliment: elegance and understatement».
