When DIESEL Upcycling Artistic Director Andrea Rosso first conceived the brand’s new fashion project, DIESEL UPCYCLING FOR, he had three core values in mind: transparency, upcycling, sustainability. The new project, which will release upcoming capsule collections every six months each by a different designer, will have only one constraint: no new clothes. Every design will be made entirely from existing garments.
The series’ inaugural collection is a partnership with Andrea Rosso’s own 55DSL, DIESEL’s sporty sublabel from the ‘90s. Rosso’s capsule collection is designed to look visibly stitched together—garments are made up of mixed materials, different washes, and overlapping logos. Sweatshirts are cut into four tones from four different fabrics; jeans are combined with cargos. As a whole, the capsule looks like a postmodern pastiche that nods to both DIESEL’s and 55DSL’s heritage, reinterpreted through an aesthetic that looks strikingly contemporary.
Playfulness guides the spirit of the capsule collection, as in the wordplay of logos like the Frank & Stein T-shirt, as the collection itself is a kind of Frankenstein mashup. It’s a way of looking both to the past and forward to the future, combining historical consciousness with innovation. One might even consider Rosso’s designs as following an avant-garde tradition that draws attention to the construction of a particular work rather than concealing it. It’s fashion about how fashion is made: meta-fashion!
In an age when the demands of social media drive a continual need for new content at breakneck speed, DIESEL UPCYCLING FOR 55DSL makes an indelible political statement. It subverts the fashion calendar’s demand for newness each season by upcycling old forms.
Peep the lookbook photos above to see the capsule collection. DIESEL UPCYCLING FOR 55DSL is available now on diesel.com.
