The Poetry of Reduction. Inside the Mind of OLDER Studio - Friends of Friends / Freunde von Freunden (FvF)

I have a 3XL flannel shirt that I bought in LA, where we were together with friends, and I always bring it with me wherever we go. I don’t use it often, as it’s very thick–workwear, high quality, very durable. I always sleep with a pillow between my legs, and when I travel, I use the shirt: It’s a token of safety. And a great memory, bringing me back to that trip. I’m not the biggest fan of nostalgia, actually even try to fight it. But the shirt is an exception.

I have a lot of items like these that should go into the bin, but I can’t possibly get rid of them. Like this shirt, a piece from a friend’s graduate collection, from when we studied together, that’s completely worn out after 20 years. It’s so unique, since I cannot buy it again, made to measure for my body. I also use it as a reference for other pieces, finding some of its elements again in other items, like aprons. I also have a shirt from my grandmother, which I love, and also tried to copy in my atelier.

You keep a lot more things than I do–my willingness to throw things out is much bigger. I was really inspired by science fiction, particularly A book called ´Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheepby´, the American writer Philip K. Dick. It has a term for things that should be discarded, ‘kipple’, and we’ve adopted that word in our family.

We have a very close relationship to the countryside where Letizia is from. So when a big project has landed, I very often find myself longing for a non-aesthetic place. It relaxes the brain. You can totally OD on design. Where Letizia is from, a beautiful part of Tuscany, there’s a kind of wonderful absence of design; everything is very simple. It takes me to a mindset that massively helps me wind down.

With two young kids and us working together, everything is a bit blurred. When you have small kids, life after work is high intensity. The oldest is four, the younger only 11 months. My real job really starts at 5:30pm when the ‘official’ job is over. So in a way, decompression isn’t what it used to be. Milan is a city built for people to work and then leave–it’s always been like that. So the decompression happens once we leave the city. Luckily, everything is close by.

Morten and I started OLDER in 2013, and we’d been a couple for only about a year before that. 

We started really early, we were 23 and 24. OLDER has been a slow burn, a step-by-step development. So when things grow organically, you learn to implement boundaries much more easily. Letizia, particularly at the beginning, was very specific about that–drawing lines. The pandemic taught us a lot too. There were concrete periods where these things came naturally. Today it’s very intuitive–we don’t have a specific set of rules.

 I’ve always been good at switching off. And Morten has really benefited from that influence. Not stepping on each other’s roles came intuitively. The best idea always wins. We try never to take it personally. We don’t usually interfere with each other during the very first part of the creative process; only once it’s about the details do we start working together. We’re good at different things, which makes it easier too. Morten is more of a generalist, but he’s the real artist–that’s his mindset. He has a lot of ideas, does a lot of research. He suffers more.

The artist is defined by suffering–so Italian. (laughing)

I am more of a specialist, and follow the development and production much more closely. I know the limitations of materials and production, so I’m always the one bringing the restrictions to the table. The usual process is that Morten gets the inspiration and starts the development, then I come in later to make it work, to bring it to reality.

On archiving: That often goes back to nostalgia. We have so many prototypes, we archive them in boxes, and of course a lot of displays in our showroom.

The beautiful thing about working with uniforms is that there’s no seasonal approach, no collections. So we have a lot of time to experiment with ideas. Recently we experimented a lot with high-visibility garments. Taking the time to fall in love with an idea is crucial for us. That’s also what led us to a solid design process. Often the job is to reduce more than to design. Reduction is a tool we use to strip things back. Working with what you have is a super huge part of how we work.

Morten takes a lot of photos, and he sketches a lot. He zooms out with music, and a podcast, withdraws and draws.

The paradox is that Letizia is incredible at drawing–she has such incredible talent. I am rather limited. I draw in my notebook, but also digitally, whatever is in front of me, honestly.

I love drawing, but these days I don’t have a lot of time. Whether it’s for work or with the kids, I just love it. When I do it for myself, I need time without interruptions. There’s not much time for it right now, which is absolutely fine, but I’m sure it will come back. Sometimes I can be almost robotic–I send myself emails. I am on my inbox homepage all the time. It’s the only place I let remind me of everything. Sometimes it’s just an email with keywords in the subject line, an idea. I have no problem with technology, keeping up with what’s new. But things like AI don’t interest me much. My Moleskine and my physical calendar are still essential to me.

With inspiration, you can just feel that this or that will matter. It can be so many different things, but it almost reveals itself as an idea, an emotion. Right now, we’re very into meta ideas, internet aesthetics. We’re drawn to people in uniforms performing, dancing. The idea of breaking out of your routine, which is what we’re aiming to build into our design. Architecture is a huge inspiration too.

Back to the nostalgia thing: I think everything in our home is dispensable, somehow. I don’t really feel like there’s something I’d miss that much. Of course, pieces hold emotions, hold stories.

Besides the essential things like washing machines etc., this space was completely empty when we moved in. Even the kitchen is custom-made, we have an industrial sink, for example. And we used a lot of pieces from Morten’s dad’s office–industrial elements, not really ‘design’, and turned them into design ourselves–my dad works with wood and iron, and he helps us a lot with customization, that personal touch. So in a way, there’s nothing in our place that isn’t beautiful.

Morten plays music very loudly in the studio, though.

We listen to a lot of radio channels, like NTS. We collect vinyl, too. Sound quality is not so essential–sometimes a great tune can come out of an iPhone.

In the waking hours of this family, there is always music. But when I’m alone, there is less music. I got so used to being fed music by Morten that I got a little lazy on my own. I really enjoy his selection. It’s only rare that music is on, like a radio channel, and then I start to think, hmm, something is bothering me.

My early inspiration was hip hop, and I got into sampling a lot. That’s where the eclectic selection came from. It’s very often about the rabbit hole, the curiosity. I can be completely blind to what era or language something’s from. And then sometimes Letizia comes in and has to stop me.

Oh, we’re incense people–not extreme, though. We have a few we really like, and we stick to them.

We’re not radical about it, though. It’s not a focus.

Yesterday we had a meeting, and my father was in the studio, making sweet-and-sour aubergine, so sometimes we have to burn some incense to set the tone for client meetings, cleanse the air.

I am very radical on that point. Living in Italy, with so many beautiful lamps, companies making amazing lighting, I am often surprised by how bad lighting is in a lot of Italian places. The Scandinavian way is candlelight–always that orangey coloring, which is what I’ll always prefer.

 I don’t like ceiling lights that much, I prefer floor-level, indirect lighting.

That’s the main reason we started OLDER as a uniform brand. When we were very young, we loved the idea of making clothes, but had no idea what it meant to run a brand, distribute, produce. We had to learn it all from scratch. And we quickly realized the world doesn’t need another luxury brand. So we felt rather shallow and empty, but still wanted to dress people. That’s where we started thinking about purpose, something that’s accessible to people like us, something you’d feel proud to wear, but not just an ego-driven product.

In many ways, we prefer to suggest ideas. We don’t like being preached to, or told what to do. Uniforms have that wonderful ambiguity.

It’s a statement when people choose us. There are so many aprons out there. A basic apron that costs 5 euros can look just as chic. But it’s about how things are made, the sustainability aspect, being true to our values, having an honest supply chain. That’s all quite political, in the end.

There are social layers in there. Uniforms can be quite loaded like that. If we’re doing our job well, the people who buy them know this is a conscious alternative where the process is interwoven into the piece. You shouldn’t feel that you’re wearing something intellectual; you should ultimately feel good wearing it.

Often, particularly, the chef shirt and the apron are more male garments. Our aim is for everyone to look stunning, independent of body shape.

It’s a good question. I think there should be vulnerability in every aspect of the process. When we’re more vulnerable, we’re more emotional.

The products are communicated and produced very sincerely. The vulnerability makes them authentic.

I would have loved a very Italian lunch with the Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. His poetry in his films is so inspiring. Just being in his presence would be amazing. He had a period in Italy where he made a film called “Nostalgia”, and I’d love to talk about food with him.

There’s an Italian writer, from Sicily, called Andrea Camilleri–I’ve read almost all of his books, from my teenage years onward. It’s my summer reading. He created fictional books about a “commissario”–he writes a lot in dialect, about food and culture. I would love to have lunch with him, just to talk about everyday things. Once a journalist asked him about how hard the phase of creating must be. His answer was very poetic, it’s like a dancer on the stage, who doesn’t show to the public all the pain of training behind a beautiful show. So the artist shouldn’t show the suffering of the creative process either. If you share that with your audience, you’re taking away the lightness, the inspiration you can give them. You can bring someone joy without explaining the process, the struggles. Sometimes we need the illusion.

Our team could answer this so much better!

They’d say that our process is a lot calmer than people would expect. I hope our tools would say that we use them with respect, that they are used in a safe and sound environment. There can be complaints about the techno banging, but hopefully the clarity and calmness is what they’d talk about.

It’s been a very stable phase for a few years now–we have a great team of eight, and it’s all very harmonious. Usually Morten and I go out for lunch, and the team stays at the studio and cooks. It’s like a big family. There’s not much drama–not like the glamorous world of high fashion. Probably the objects would be bored, since they expected a lot more drama.