CITY Issue 59

P WHY RELY ON EXTERNAL TREND FORECASTING COMPANIES WHEN WE CAN LITERALLY SEND OUR TEAMS AROUND THE WORLD FOR INSPIRATION? p oducts a yea ; he looks like a man who would like to take a subma ine to B azil. That qui ky sense of adventu e has lead to an iconic — if at times confounding — ad campaign that has won awa ds and c iticism in equal measu e. In , the company was c iticized fo sponso ing a young singe named Joanna Zychowitz, only to eveal that the singe didn’t even exist. It’s an app oach that Rosso desc ibes as having combined “ little sex, a little humo , and a lot of intelligence.” Despite Rosso’s o -p ofessed love fo i ony, Diesel’s engagement with eme ging c eative talent has been ve y eal, foste ed th ough eﬀo ts such as the Diesel Denim Galle y, which has exhibited a tists and designe s such as Dea aind op and Su face to i . With the Diesel Wall, the company has suppo ted public a t in cities such as Milan, Mancheste , Zu ich, Copenhagen, and Beijing, and with Diesel-U Music it has p ovided logistical suppo t fo bands and DJs. Close to home, the company founded Inte national Talent Suppo t, 66 CITY TY which sponso s an annual competition fo young fashion designe s in the Italian po t city of T ieste. That fondness fo innovative talent motivated Rosso to lend ﬁ nancial suppo t to avant-ga de Belgian designe Ma tin Ma giela. Long espected within the fashion community, Ma giela is equally well known fo his obscu ity: his clothes bea no logo, his pictu e has neve been taken and he doesn’t appea onstage at his fashion shows. Safe to say, Rosso wasn’t looking at this as a b and-building investment. But doing the counte -intuitive is fundamental to his app oach to both Diesel and his life. “Diesel eally, t uly is my life. I took my way of life, the way I wanted to live my life, and t anslated that into a b anded lifestyle.” This philosophy has allowed Rosso to c eate a b and that has t anscended appa el to be “a complete lifestyle oﬀe ing with accesso ies, intimates, kids p oducts, home deco , f ag ance, footwea , jewel y . . .” and even a videogame. When Rosso founded the company in , “I decided to c eate a f esh b and whe e the e we e no ules in te ms of c eativity, but the e was a lot of passion in te ms of an eve yday job and p ojects. Eve ything we do has to be unp edictable, unique and o iginal, and this is t ue fo ou p ojects and ou events, as well as fo ou collections.” Which is almost what you would expect to hea f om the son of a fa me who edeﬁ ned u ban style by combining sleek tailo ing with dist essed denim, all while unning his global fashion label f om an oﬃce in the Italian count yside. Maybe owning that fa m makes sense a e all. IMAGES COURTESY OF DIESEL UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED e haps he needs a b eak. Of those eighteen pa ties, he plans to attend th ee, sta ting the evening in Tokyo and then ﬂying backwa ds in time to clink cocktails in New o k and London. If he’s feeling ambitious, he might even make it to the pa ties in Helsinki o Dubai befo e he’s done. When asked about his plans fo the company’s next yea s, he jokes, “Who knows if Diesel will be oﬀe ing custome s t ips to oute space o on a ide ac oss the ocean in a subma ine?” t least it seems like he’s joking . . . With Rosso about to int oduce the ﬁ st Diesel ca , it’s ha d to be su e. Fo Rosso, the c eative inspi ation found in t avel is fundamental to Diesel’s identity. Each season, Diesel’s design team begins thei c eative p ocess with a jou ney somewhe e exotic, taking up to fou t ips pe yea to fa -ﬂung locations such as B azil o Kenya in sea ch of new ideas. s Rosso puts it, “Why ely on exte nal t end fo ecasting companies when we can lite ally send ou teams a ound the wo ld fo inspi ation?” Even the company’s name speaks to a calculated globalism — Rosso ﬁ st chose it in , a e dete mining that “Diesel” is the a e wo d p onounced almost identically in eve y language. Still, if globet otting stimulation is lacking, he can always send his staﬀ fo a b eezy walk in that vineya d, conveniently located on a hill above the company’s headqua te s in No the n Italy. In eaction to the t end fo ecasting that Rosso sco ns, Diesel’s app oach to discove ing t ends is o ganic, foste ed th ough a netwo k of loyal consume s called the Diesel Cult. With mo e than half a million membe s, the cult is la ge enough to make even the Moonies ne vous, and it se ves as a vital esou ce fo the company to both maintain and evolve its identity. “The Diesel Cult g ew out of the need to communicate di ectly with consume s. We eally t eat the Cult as a communication device — whethe it’s attending a cocktail pa ty to view the new collection o an out-of-hou s shopping expe ience o just to say hello, it’s a t ied and t ue method to build and maintain elationships.” This di ect inte action with consume s is also a way to keep the company and its founde ete nally young. With his f izzy mop of blonde hai , Rosso ce tainly doesn’t look like a man in cha ge of a company that p oduces , new PHOTO BY GUIDO HARARI PHOTO BY MICHAEL SANDERS

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CITY Issue 59

CITY Issue 59 Contents Have You Heard? Our Friends Action Wanted City Moment Diary Temporary Contemporary In Rogue The Amused Bouche Fast Food Tara Subkoff Alvarourbano Hardy Blachman Javier Peres Cult Classic Dream Jewels London Calling Argentina Good Airs Mission from God Your Place, and Mine One City, Many Destinations I'm Good, I'm Gone. 7 Hour Overdrive Where to Buy It Cityscape

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