INSIDE THE C.P. COMPANY ARCHIVE

Really, the list of products, materials and treatments pioneered by C.P. Company is one that’s of a breadth and depth you only ever feel you’re at the tip of the iceberg with, always scratching the surface of a history that’s been rooted in relentless innovation and non-conformity. The sheer magnitude of what the label has done for the fashion industry is something that cannot be overstated, establishing methods of design and manufacturing that have spread far and wide like the roots of a vast, centuries-old oak tree, influencing a plethora of labels and designers who have followed. It’s little wonder why the label’s pioneering founder, Massimo Osti, is widely referred to as the “Godfather of Sportswear”: a trailblazing visionary who shaped the foundations of contemporary performancewear as we know it.

As we first stepped into the C.P. Company’s archive, located alongside its research and development unit in a sleepy, mountainous region of Northeast Italy, you’re instantly met by a visual reminder of the aforementioned magnitude, as rows of era-categorised garments lay ahead of you waiting to be explored. We go back to the earlier years —’82, to be precise, stretching back to 11 years after the label was founded — and begin to flick through the rails, excitedly pulling out jacket after jacket to examine. It’s here you get an immediate sense for what Osti so cleverly executed in those years, taking familiar menswear codes and transforming them into something new and cutting-edge. I pull out a bomber jacket which deftly exemplifies this, with its nylon outer garment dyed a mesmerising shade of green that looks experimental today, never mind in the 1980s. You can really imagine the other-worldliness of pieces like this dismantling conservative menswear archetypes of the time, instead replacing them with a horizon of possibilities yet to be explored.

Our eyes are immediately drawn to a reversible leather jacket from 1987, featuring black leather on one side and a striped wool on the other. It’s a further symbol of how ahead of the curve Osti was at the time, constantly looking to rethink the way garments could, and should, be worn. As we move further down the rail, we come to a date of enormous significance to C.P. Company: 1988. It was this very year that the label’s design codes would forever have their crowning glory in the form of the legendary Mille Miglia jacket: a garment which once sponsored the annual, gruelling endurance race of the same name. The idea for the jacket was crystallised through Massimo Osti’s intense garment research in the mid to late ‘80s, where, upon studying a protective hood worn by the Japanese civil defence, Massimo decided to incorporate goggles into a jacket. This approach, one of recontextualising military and utilitarian codes, became a signature of Massimo Osti’s design approach. As we delve into this era of the brand, our attention is brought to those earlier renditions of the legendary jacket, including two immaculate, ’88 and ’89 Race editions in khaki and grey. From here onwards, you begin to see the influence the Mille Miglia had on the design codes of the brand, with a plethora of iterative jackets, like a half leather rework that we examine from A/W 2005.   

As we approach the turn of the millennium, you can begin to see the design codes of C.P. Company evolve through its collections. In 1998, Moreno Ferrari developed one of the most coveted collections in the brand’s history, dubbed “Urban Protection”, which contextualised garments through the lens of increasing surveillance and societal angst ahead of the year 2000. The name of the collection was self-explanatory, offering an array of innovative solutions for those living in densely populated, inner-city areas. Think jackets with built-in anti-smog masks or digital voice recorders. Truly ground-breaking product today, never mind over two decades ago. We start to look closely at a selection of icons from the range, the flagship Metropolis, the Life jacket and also the Solo Utility Vest with Maglite torch. Alongside this is another of Moreno Ferrari’s more obscure collections, dubbed Millennium Series, typically identifiable by its reflective “000” branding and its use of lightweight, garment dyed nylon.

As we move throughout the archive, you get a real sense of the importance fabric metamorphosis has played to the label throughout the years, never viewing materials in and of themselves, but rather springboards for innovation. Take a striking, garment dyed puffer jacket in an iridescent shade of orange as proof of this, for instance, or outerwear crafted from Kan-D — which stands for Klear Achronic Nylon Dyed — a fabric constructed using a complex process to achieve its transparent, candy wrapper-like appearance.

We then move on to an adjacent room in the archive which documents recent seasons, prototypes and a now significant element of C.P. Company in the modern era: collaborations. Heritage is a fundamental pillar of the label, something which is even more blatant as you see those threads throughout the archive like one big, interwoven tapestry. As we begin to explore the room, our attention is immediately drawn towards 2019’s Dyneema® Metropolis jacket, a thread which can be traced directly back to ’98 and the much-lauded original. The remake truly looks like something that has crash landed to earth from another planet, largely thanks to its Dyneema® outer fabric — which has a strength-to-weight ratio eight times industrial steel — that’s rendered in a metallic shade that resembles some kind of dystopian, inner-city armour. We then move on to examine C.P. Company’s collaborations, something which the label has carefully and tastefully curated throughout recent years.

I immediately spot a jacket garment dyed in a shade of purple that’s beautifully faded in that typical C.P. Company way, detailed with a co-branded watch viewer proudly reading “Palace” front and centre. It was one of the focal points of C.P. Company’s partnership with Palace at the end of 2022: a transformed goggle jacket that combined both the familiar and the new into one striking, much-desired package. The version we examined represented an early sample — bereft of the final garment’s iridescent goggles — with its prototypical notes still intact. Alongside this were samples from the full collection, notably the duffle jacket — a derivative of the original rubber wool jackets from the brand’s F/W ’88 collection. It’s an example of the seamless blend of heritage and contemporary in the collection, its traditional striped patterning — originally inspired by military blankets — running parallel to an oversized Palace Tri-Ferg at the back. It’s a prime example of what C.P. Company executes perfectly with its contemporary releases, both solo and collaborative: driving forward into the future while honouring the past.

For over five decades, C.P. Company has fearlessly moved into the unknown through relentless research and continuous experimentation, establishing its name as one of the vanguards in the world of cutting-edge Italian sportswear. It’s a history that, as we leave the archive and move through the serene countryside of Northeast Italy, we all feel extremely lucky to have experienced firsthand.