Massimo Giorgetti Talks About Sustainability, and the Art and Music at the Heart of MSGM
Interviewed by Alexei Key
Massimo Giorgetti Talks About Sustainability, and the Art and Music at the Heart of MSGM.
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One of my family members used to make prints for very famous brands in the 1980s, like El Charro and Best Company, and this was probably my first contact with the fashion world. Growing up in Rimini, a town on the Adriatic Sea that was very en vogue in the 1990s for nightlife, gave me the opportunity to meet so many designers and artists.
After an experience in sales at a high-end boutique in my city, it was quite a natural progression to starting work in the fashion industry—and at a certain point, I decided to launch MSGM. It was not easy in the beginning, also because I had to move to Milan; but all my efforts paid off, and today I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
I describe MSGM as color, energy, young and eclectic. I put all my ideas, feelings and emotions into my collections, and my goal is to bring positivity and to value the Italian spirit. MSGM collections are clothes for pleasure; I want people to enjoy wearing them and to make them a part of their lives. And as always, everything from MSGM is made in Italy. It makes this collection about my homeland even more special to me.
For the latest women’s collection for fall/winter 2021, I presented “Manifesto” for MSGM. It was an ode to the city, a new manifesto on the hypnotic rhythm of a song written and interpreted by Gea Politi, editor of the contemporary-art magazine Flash Art. This project is in collaboration with Club Domani, the party held every Saturday at Milan’s legendary Plastic Club, and is based on a record idea by Sergio Tavelli and Andrea Ratti, the club’s resident DJs. I also did a collaboration with Alessandro Calabrese, a Milan-based artist. Art is one of the most fundamental parts of the MSGM soul; both art and music stimulate my imagination and are the ingredients used in the creation of my collections.
Though I am inspired by many different things: It can be someone I meet on the street—so many times I ask people I don’t know if I can take a picture—or a movie, a TV series, or a work of art. I’m a very curious person, and I love to look at very different things. There’s no specific process—I just follow the flow.
Last year we celebrated the brand’s 10th anniversary. It’s been a long journey with many ups and downs. The most important thing I’ve learned is to never give up and to stay focused on reaching our goals. I feel very fortunate to work in this field. Meeting so many people and doing several collaborations for my collections has allowed me to learn and enrich myself, not only in my field but also at a personal level. And the best part is that this personal evolution happens so naturally.
Every collection we saw during this past year represented a unique, very personal answer to the terrible challenges we’ve been called to face today. During this pandemic, our way of thinking and our needs have changed. To recover from this disruptive year, fashion doesn’t necessarily need to slow down; it just needs to take these new human needs into account. We need to take more time to work differently, to act differently, and to create differently. Better fashion and a better world will result from this.
It’s definitely been strange living through this tough period, but at the same time I think it took us back to a dimension of reality, made up of small things that are fundamental for rediscovering important values. I always try to keep my spirits up, to be positive and work with my team to be creative and to find solutions for what we will encounter in the coming months. I’m also an optimist by nature, and I think fashion can have an important role in our society while we’re going through this.
What I hope to leave behind with my work is positivity, as well as the importance of Italian craftsmanship. Sustainability is another important goal for our company, which the pandemic has also highlighted as a vital issue. In today’s world it is necessary to respect the environment and understand humanity’s impact, and to pass this respect on to future generations. With that in mind, my legacy would be incomplete without values of sustainability.
