Sure, we could (and do) talk endlessly about the clothes we love, but for our column Line Item, we ask some of our favorite designers to tell us what they think about the best pieces from their newest collections. Today, Colin Torvino of Modern Man talks to us about his Phoebe Philo Concert Tee.
I’ve always seen connections between sociology and design. Associations and clashing elements are very important to me, kind of a Dries Van Noten design approach, but evolved for millennials. This piece aspired to take a symbol of high intellectual property and taste, like Phoebe Philo, and apply it to something people can afford, like a t-shirt, without losing ingenuity. For a while the “new thing” was people as brands, but the “new new thing” is people who don’t want to be brands as brands. It’s about celebrating and curating the real dreamers, the game changers, the world builders —the new rock stars. I’ll probably do something on Supreme founder James Jebbia next. With Modern Man, we like to approach design from a sociology standpoint, and understand that people see each other through shared values. For instance, computer culture, which inspired the typography, has made the world a much better, more organized, more efficient place, so why not celebrate this through the form of Phoebe?