Fausto Puglisi Debuts Menswear at Pitti Uomo

“I’m tired, but I’m okay, actually. I’m very happy,” said Fausto Puglisi yesterday, the evening before he would show his first-ever men’s designs at Pitti Uomo.

He had spent the day finalizing the casting and styling, meeting with the calcio storico (a brutal Rugby-like sport) players – “real men” – he had tapped to model the capsule collection. “Every guy is special, a human being,” he said, which is why he let them choose for themselves what they would wear during the presentation. “Because there’s nothing worse than looking at a man or a woman who doesn’t believe in the look–though I did make two changes,” he admitted with a laugh.

For inspiration, Puglisi looked to macho men from the movies, like Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver and Brad Pitt in Fight Club. But the idea for a men’s line was actually born out of his bold, embellished, and altogether sexy women’s clothes. “Many department stores told me ‘you know what? There are so many men who buy your oversized jackets, your oversized shirts, your oversized t-shirts, whatever.’”

So he set out to create separates specifically for them. “Many women wear masculine, oversized knits, beautiful coats, beautiful jackets, and men wear the girlfriend’s lace shirts. This is the reality already. So it’s about freedom, it’s about no boundaries,” he said.

The resulting collection includes tunics, shorts, and jackets, in a red and black color scheme with prints we’ve come to recognize are purely Puglisi: palm trees, checker board, Greek and Roman motifs.

“I have a strong personality; I like to be in the middle of extreme good taste and extreme bad taste, and I like mixing them together,” he said. “Yet everything can be styled with your Levi’s from ’95. It’s made of separates, and every single piece I wanted to be itself.”

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