Massimo Osti, a foundation to shape young designers / Photo
Bologna, 6 June 2025 – The news comes at the end of the talk preceding the inauguration of the exhibition 'Ideas from Massimo Osti. From Bologna, beyond fashion' at Palazzo Pepoli ( photo ), and it is his son Lorenzo Osti – here with his sisters Agata and Teresa – who communicates it: the Fondazione Massimo Osti Archive , which will be born very soon in Bologna, "will try to intercept young designers from fashion schools to teach them the Osti method that starts from the archives and passes through the transformation laboratories where printing is done, screen printing is done, fabrics are printed. We should be ready by the end of the year".
A great initiative that will deliver the legacy of the engineer-designer , as the Bolognese visionary creator of famous brands including CP Company in 1978 and Stone Island in 1982 was called, to the new generations. Who better than them will be able to welcome his teachings and that spirit that understood the times by inventing Sportswear? Because then the entire journey he made in the textile sector, introducing cutting-edge fabrics and revolutionary techniques that can be seen in the exhibition, began with a new and explosive thought of his time and for a youth that had never been like this.
In the talk, each speaker, from Roberto Grandi to Francesca Ragazzi and up to Enrico Brizzi , truly offered a precious piece to compose the Osti puzzle, which is then sealed by his son Lorenzo, now president of CP Company and Massimo Osti Studio. "The context in which Massimo Osti creates - says Grandi - is that of the Seventies in which a creative Bologna did not exist, but there was a split within the university, from which the Dams was born , which in the first year had 120 students and the following year 1,000".
And she continues: "The DAMS went about its own business and was perceived as a place of transgression, no one had ever seen people like that – those who attended the courses – wandering around Bologna, it was a city within the city that had a dialogue with Massimo Osti". Francesca Ragazzi , Head of Editorial Content Vogue Italia, then adds, stating that today what is sought in the famous monthly is "understanding what ingredients make a creative an innovator , as was Virgil Abloh, a designer who just like Osti who was a graphic designer, did not come from fashion, he was an engineer, an architect and this suggests to us that you do not have to study fashion to make fashion".
The writer Brizzi reiterates the importance of the university environment , of the context of the time, to talk about the innovative proposal of Massimo Osti enjoyed by the subcultures. "Many things started to go around together and to produce a meaning right there and even today his leaders have cult niches that have grown by themselves in all these years".
Among the audience stands out his wife Daniela Facchinato, a great photographer . There is the director Gabriele Salvatores , the photographer Nino Migliori , the collector and fashion lady Cecilia Matteucci , the entrepreneur Isabella Seragnoli , Stefano Bonaga , the artist Andrea Renzini . Now they are ready for the exhibition, the studio has also been rebuilt, which will be a unique vision, like reading a timeless fanzine. On the walls, though.
İl Resto Del Carlino
