How Our Legacy Uncovered a Forgotten Side of C.P. Company (EXCLUSIVE)
Jockum Hallin was overwhelmed. C.P. Company’s vast archive in Bologna, which not only houses pieces from the label’s founding in 1971 but also from the many other technical brands created by its founder Massimo Osti, offered an excess of source material for his forthcoming Our Legacy WORK SHOP collaboration.
“We could’ve gone so many different ways with this collection,” Hallin, one of Our Legacy’s cofounders, tells me from the Stockholm airport from which he’s London-bound for the collection's launch party. “Massimo Osti had such a big love for product, so the product always came first. Everything from the ‘70s is still wearable and looks good. It’s timeless. And very much in the vein of what we're trying to do.”
In the end, Hallin and his team decided to sidestep the most obvious route, which would’ve been to focus exclusively on C.P. Company’s innovative technical gear. There’s still some of that in play, of course, but Our Legacy dabbled with C.P. Company’s lesser-known experiments with tailoring.
“At the end of the ‘90s, C.P. Company became very minimalistic, almost like a Jil Sander-esque look,” says Hallin. “Very strict with sharp leather coats, which we also have in our world.” This era proved especially stimulating, leading C.P. Company and Our Legacy to create their own sharp leather coat, a loose-fitting chocolate-brown anorak with four external buttons for attaching an overwashed hood featuring C.P. Company’s signature flip-down goggles, now co-branded with both partners’ names.
The idea is that this removable hood, offered in grey, navy blue, washed black, and khaki green, can be interchanged between the collection's other outerwear, including a blazer mimicking the shape of an old Massimo Osti-designed suit, cut from hardwearing wool gabardine left over from a previous C.P. Company collection, and a classic military field jacket in washed-out light khaki achieved through Our Legacy’s signature pigment dying technique, where the dye doesn’t entirely penetrate the material’s surface and creates a faded look. Wide-legged corduroy pants and a heavy cotton thermal T-shirt also feature this pigment-dying method.
“We don’t want to take any shortcuts in finding the proper material, the proper technique, or the proper dyeing method,” says Hallin, who adds that the production was split between Our Legacy and C.P. Company depending on whose facilities were best suited for an item. “We treat each garment individually to find the best purpose for the garment.”
This thoughtful approach to collaborations has been a defining quality of Our Legacy’s WORK SHOP project. Though established to upcycle and rework old Our Legacy mainline clothing, WORK SHOP has become the more collaboration-friendly arm of the Scandinavian brand. Under its purview, Converse’s most famous sneaker is remade by hand, beautiful Armani fabrics are reclaimed from the archives for loose-fitting casualwear, and silk shirts are hand-dyed by an Italian winemaker.
This slow-craft approach to collaboration, which sees WORK SHOP regularly linking up with buzzy partners like the Californian streetwear OG Stüssy and stylish Parisian running brand Satisfy, has proven a winning formula: Earlier this week, Our Legacy WORK SHOP opened a London store, its second permanent outpost, and Hallin says that it’s one of more to come.
But it's not just Our Legacy benefiting from its patient approach. Enrico Grigoletti, a C.P. Company executive, was utterly thrilled with the collaborative product. “Most collaborations seem driven by the need to make noise,” he said. “It’s a relief to meet partners who share a genuine commitment to product quality, a true rarity in today’s landscape.”
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