Streetwear Guru Luca Benini on Slam Jam’s Enlargement Into Womenswear – WWD

MILAN — Take it from an skilled: streetwear won’t ever be useless.

So believes streetwear guru Luca Benini, founding father of Slam Jam, which has taken a street-inspired strategy since its early days in 1989. In an interview with WWD, the maven not solely mentioned the corporate’s latest enlargement into womenswear within the lead-up to Slam Jam’s thirty fifth anniversary, but additionally shared ideas on the state of the trade.

Whereas the minimalist and beige-forward “quiet luxurious” wave could have dimmed the keenness of hype beasts, Benini mentioned that such a shift in vogue is just physiological. 

“I imagine {that a} assertion like ‘streetwear is useless’ can come solely from these in vogue, not these costume at massive. Vogue takes and rejects, and if we consider streetwear as a meals ingredient, there’s been a form of overuse — it was all over the place similar to parsley,” mentioned Benini. “And since vogue has to alter by definition… [it’s understandable] that after years, there was a necessity to return to one thing extra minimal.”

“Streetwear is useless similar to punk is useless — which is rarely useless, as a result of even after 50 years, we nonetheless discuss it. Streetwear existed earlier than vogue seen it and can exist after it, too,” continued Benini. “What occurred was that after many years that [streetwear] was ill-viewed from the style system, at a sure level the trade realized there might have been one thing to take even from there. That mainly it might supply rather a lot — and it did. In return, streetwear acquired rather a lot from this closeness to vogue, as nicely: it understood that garments could possibly be made higher, it upped the standard.”

Began from a storage in Ferrara, Italy, Slam Jam was on the scene method earlier than the class grew to become mainstream. Benini established the primary Italian firm to distribute cool American streetwear manufacturers within the nation, having catapulted the likes of Stüssy, Carhartt WIP and Alpha Industries to Italian and European fame, and establishing a way of all-are-welcome type by mixing music, artwork and clubbing outdoors of the European vogue institution.

What kicked off as a small warehouse operation in Ferrara developed into a worldwide firm that highlights city subcultures and their cultural affect. From the mid-2000s onwards, Slam Jam progressively expanded its scope, including a direct-to-consumer enterprise with retail on high of its distribution arm. It launched a cult e-commerce website, in addition to multibrand shops in Ferrara, contained in the headquarters, and in Milan.

To this finish, the corporate determined to mark its approaching thirty fifth anniversary by increasing its product assortment and bringing its perspective to womenswear, too. 

“We’re in a continuing dialogue with our neighborhood and we felt it was pure — but pressing — to increase our model choice to be able to serve our individuals higher via extra classes, with a robust deal with equipment,” mentioned Benini. “For years we have now sometimes included after which eliminated girls’s gadgets, however now occasions have been ripe to take a decisive step into this course with a sure choice… There’s a devoted shopping for that focuses in translating the Slam Jam angle into the ladies’s world.”

The assortment blends rising and established names, together with Chet Lo, Jean Paul Gaultier, Martine Rose, Marrknull, Roussey, Abra, Guess USA and Kiko Kostadinov.

Benini, who can be behind a few of the sector’s profitable collaborations — together with Napapijri and Martine Rose, Oakley and Samuel Ross — confirmed that “the way in which we function received’t change, so there might be tasks in partnership with manufacturers that would vary from the product to an expertise or an occasion” for the ladies’s section, too.

“As we speak multibrand shops want to provide firms greater than only a window for his or her merchandise, but additionally contents, collaborations and suggestions,” mentioned Benini. “This makes [the job] extra attention-grabbing but additionally extra advanced as a result of it means you don’t need to have simply patrons, but additionally different figures in a position to reply to totally different calls for, and in the end flip these locations into one thing extra.”

Talking of collaborations, the newest one is the XT-Quest 1 for Slam Jam sneaker developed with French sportswear label Salomon, which dropped Thursday. Marking the second tie-up between the 2 events, the 190-euro outdoor-inspired footwear type nods to the rugged great thing about desert landscapes and goals to make clear the significance of dialogue with nature.

For the event, the businesses conceived an immersive retail expertise on the Beijing sizzling spot SKP and a takeover of the Shanghai-based digital music membership Heim Membership with a six-hour get together and worldwide DJ friends.

The venture marks one other step within the lead-up to Slam Jam’s anniversary, which might be celebrated with a free zine created with Zero and retracing the final “35 years of historical past of tradition we imagine to have contributed to,” mentioned Benini. The publication might be supplied at Slam Jam shops, included within the deliveries of on-line purchases, in addition to out there in a choice of bars in Italy and overseas ranging from the fourth quarter.

General, Benini outlined 2023 as one of the vital difficult years, with the corporate’s DTC channel “rising however little.” Slam Jam reported a complete turnover of fifty million euros in 2022, equally divided between its business-to-consumer and business-to-business legs. 

For the reason that mid-2010s, the latter section additionally consists of manufacturing, design, licensing, model consultancy and advertising and marketing providers, along with distribution, as Slam Jam added one other layer to its company construction and developed from curator to creator.

Slam Jam’s portfolio consists of majority stakes in manufacturers comparable to Roa and _J.L-A.L_; a minority stake in Aries and the license of the soccer-rooted label Umbro for the premium way of life section, as reported. Manufacturing accounts for 80 % of Slam Jam’s business-to-business revenues. 

The enlargement of this enterprise marked a pivotal change for Slam Jam, as “we now have to provide and handle creativity,” mentioned Benini. “It’s like a unique job, which I hope it’ll mark the way forward for this firm.”

Wanting forward, Benini’s want is “to seek out with my staff one thing that continues to make us distinctive, as a result of one other factor that’s scaring me of the market proper now could be homologation.”

“Sadly, there’s an excessive amount of stuff, they usually all look too related. I feel it’s our responsibility to attempt to differentiate ourselves and discover our place in a world that immediately may be very, very homologated,” he mentioned.

How to do this? “I don’t know. We’re interested by it day by day,” mentioned Benini candidly. “Possibly attempting to assume in a method that’s slightly revolutionary; attempting to revolutionize what has been executed up to now. And I do know it’s not simple, as a result of the issues that work out are essentially the most tough to let go of, however I imagine that there’s a necessity for a [thought] that may allow this firm to seek out fairly a singular place in a market that immediately makes it tough to be totally different.”

“Fortunately Slam Jam has a robust id, so we don’t need to create uniqueness. We have now to protect it, stimulate its evolution and talk it,” continued the founder. “We have now to reinvent ourselves by remaining true to ourselves… And we don’t need to be afraid to diversify the place we make investments energies and concepts.” 

Being a full-stack enterprise accomplice comes with the privilege of getting a particular observatory within the trade, which permits Slam Jam to supervise the event of a product or venture from A to Z, representing “already a uniqueness when it comes to enterprise structure,” famous the founder. 

Requested about how the skin notion of Slam Jam has developed via the many years, Benini joked that “there’s extra confusion.” 

“I see that typically we’re recognized as a retailer however we’re not simply that,” he mentioned. However for a corporation that has “Chaos is Order” as one in all its claims, that doesn’t sound like a serious concern for Benini. He underscored that Slam Jam’s growing complexity and internationalization marked its evolution and recognized within the shift from curation to creation one of many three fundamental turning factors of the previous 35 years.

The primary two Benini pinpointed have been his first journeys to New York and Los Angeles within the early ‘90s, which kick-started Slam Jam’s journey and people to Tokyo within the early 2000s. 

“I began to work in vogue within the early ‘80s and Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace and Gianfranco Ferré have been among the many designers influencing me. Seeing streetwear going towards a extra vogue orientation — and the firsts on this sense have been the Japanese manufacturers — has been pivotal for this firm,” recalled Benini. “After I opened the shop in Verona, the thought was to have Dior subsequent to the Neighborhood. Possibly it didn’t turned out actually like that, however we had Sacai and Undercover, and all this was taking place lengthy earlier than that well-known Supreme collaboration with Louis Vuitton.”

Requested concerning the present designers who’re influencing him, Benini struggled to supply names as “immediately greater than single designers, conditions encourage me.”

“The sensation I’ve is that greater than absorbing, now it’s time for me to launch. I had managed these previous 4 many years as blotting paper, and possibly now that blotting paper is drenched,” mentioned Benini. 

“I’ve all the time had guiding lights since I began working, from Fiorucci to Armani, from Shawn Stüssy to Hiroshi Fujiwara and plenty of extra,” he continued. “As we speak, it feels proper that all the things that I’ve absorbed, I launch it below the guise of the tasks we’re doing… However don’t mistake it for being self-referential, quite for increasing horizons much more going ahead and possibly discovering new references inside me — which it may also be a ache within the neck as a result of I’m not used to it and it’s not simple,” he added with amusing. 

What’s positive is that music will all the time play a central position in Benini’s universe, as proved by the Archivio Slam Jam private archive inaugurated in 2021, which gathered the memorabilia and knickknacks he has collected through the years for a complete of round 30,000 objects, together with 10,000 vinyl information hinging on the counterculture and membership scenes from ‘90s New York, London and Italy.

By way of the years, Slam Jam additionally dropped a collection of music-leaning capsule collections below its (Un)company Uniforms personal label venture launched in 2020. These paid homage to the likes of Italian punk band CCCP, to Akron, Ohio-based band Devo, and to the Gaznevada music group from Bologna.

Benini can be dedicated in persevering with to discover Slam Jam’s position as cultural promoter, which was fueled with the opening of the Spazio Maiocchi multidisciplinary hub in Milan in 2017.