“The textile industry did not need yet another luxury brand,” says Morten Thuesen under the complicit gaze of his companion and associate, Letizia Caramia, from their Milanese apartment-studio. The couple of designers trained in the London workshops of designer Alexander McQueen preferred to respond to a need rather than create new ones.
Thus were born in Paris, under the Italian-Danish brand Older, their durable and inclusive work uniforms (from XXS to 6XL). We are in 2013, the two young people are barely celebrating their quarter century and are already very busy with their respective activities – she is then a designer for Isabel Marant and he, a teacher at the Parsons School of Design – when they launch their uniforms at the minimalist and elegant cuts.
Straight unisex pants, loose shirts with high collars, trapeze skirts with asymmetrical buttons or apron dresses cut from Italian water-repellent fabrics (organic cotton and recycled polyester), themselves made in Europe and designed to last, or even get better. with time. A snub to the fashion sector, obsessed with novelty: “There’s nothing like a patinated object. Older is a tribute to what ages well. Worn, soiled and washed for several years, our outfits maintain the same quality and end up becoming an extension of those who wear them,” believes Letizia Caramia.
A decade and a move to Milan later, the couple hold a virtual monopoly on the niche sustainable uniform market and have more than three hundred and fifty customers. One of the latest is, in Paris, Datil, the first restaurant of chef Manon Fleury, whose brigade, almost 100% female, wears long beige bib aprons over white shirts with Mao collars for the cooks and with asymmetrical collar for servers.
If it is aimed at various trades, the brand targets establishments thought out down to the smallest detail. “The restaurants we work with pay the same attention to the contents of their plates as they do to the design of each piece of equipment. This concerns gourmet restaurants, but also more and more coffee shops, wine bars, bakeries, large hotels and even certain private clinics. explains Morten Thuesen. In the duo’s approach, halfway between fashion and design, the uniform becomes an architecture in motion. Consecration: since mid-December, the Maxxi, the national museum of contemporary art in Rome, has been exhibiting part of their collection.