C.P. Company’s Collab Strategy with Enrico Grigoletti

In five short years, C.P. Company has mastered the art of collaboration. We interview Marketing Director, Enrico Grigoletti, to understand the key to their success.

Cracking the code of collaboration is a feat rarely achieved with total finesse. After all, any brand that launches collabs does so with the risk of diluting its image and distorting its product catalogue. For a brand playing to a fanbase with loyalty as strong as C.P. Company, the wrong collab can be damaging.

In this piece, we interview C.P. Company’s Marketing Director - Enrico Grigoletti - to explore:

• The evolution of C.P. Company’s collab strategy

• How new partners are chosen

• The challenges and lessons learned during the evolution of the strategy

• The current and future trends in new luxury collabs

C.P. Company is the brainchild of Massimo Otsi, it’s both a leader and a pioneer in sportswear-centred garment research, having earned its nearly six decades-long legacy by digging its heels deep into the ground, nurturing its roots, and demanding excellence from its craft. 

Maintaining peak standards is an internal labour of love that, until recent years, seldom extended beyond CP’s Italian home. Of course, the brand’s beloved archive has reached all corners of the earth through its close connection to subcultural movements, particularly across Europe, yet the intimate sharing of its archive with collaborators long illuded the team.

This was, of course, by design, as careful considerations must be made to ensure the smooth operations required to deliver a collection to a successful reception. For most, collaboration is nothing new; it’s as frequent, if not more so, than seasonal collections, but for C.P., it’s a relatively new playground. 

Despite its status as a newcomer in the field, C.P. Company has worked tirelessly, and in the words of its Marketing Director Enrico Grigoletti, with an “empathetic” approach to building a desirable collaborative portfolio. 

Following its initial foray alongside adidas in 2018, C.P.’s collaborative strategy has undertaken several tweaks and alterations, expanding its universe with beloved streetwear titans like Palace and Patta while snatching a piece of the sneaker pie alongside ASICS. 

In five short years, the Italian Sportswear powerhouse has seemingly mastered the art of collaboration. Where this strategy achieved its success is something that Enrico Grigoletti knows all too well.

How has C.P. Company’s collaborative strategy evolved since its early team-ups?

We started quite late in the game, considering that our first collaboration (with adidas) is dated 2018.

At that time, we didn’t know exactly what we were doing and weren’t fully prepared to work with such a structured company. Not because we didn’t have the expertise but because we were configured differently, with wholesale business defining our planning, timing and organisation. 

Going from 0 to adidas was an incredible effort, but it helped us reshape part of the company’s ability to work with a different mindset, from design to production, marketing to sales. 

Today, collaborations are part of the business, and each special project is approached with a strategic vision, even if the human component of partnering with someone we like is still very present.

You’ve steadily expanded your collaborative roster. How are new partners chosen?

More randomly than someone would expect. To be very honest, an empathetic component plays a key role. It might sound dumb, but getting along with the people you’re going to work with is probably the most important part of choosing, developing, and making a collaboration successful.

In some cases, we’re specifically looking for a partner because there’s a specific product or cultural story that we want to develop through that collaboration. Most of the time, however, we’re the ones approached. In that case, we discuss internally if the proposed idea fits our design direction and calendar.

How do you approach collaborative collections, from concept to product?

It always depends on the partner. Sometimes, we’re approached with very specific ideas, and we try to understand if they could fit our design thinking. 

Other times, we’re approached with the general desire to do something together. In this case, we try to understand the needs or direction of the partner to propose something from our technology vocabulary that could resonate with the partner’s direction.

Having a meeting with our Design and Product Development team is extremely helpful in defining the collection framework.

What challenges has C.P. faced while building out its new collaborative strategy? 

In the beginning, adapting the collaboration system into a well-oiled wholesale business mechanism was challenging. From the outside, it’s difficult to understand the footwork, the logistics, and the coordination required to manage any special projects. 

Today, there are plenty of brands built around collaborations, and these brands have raised the consumer’s expectations of a partnership’s frequency. If you’re a company with a strong DTC approach, it’s easier to include collaboration as a key component in your business.

What have been the biggest successes or achievements so far? 

The whole CINQUANTA project in 2021, for sure. 

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of C.P. Company, we created a calendar of 10 special stories that were released every month to celebrate cultural and product chapters of the brand: from a small documentary and a merch capsule with the Lucio Dalla Foundation to a homage to the spirit of paninari with Sebago, from our 50th-anniversary book to a full line with Emporio Armani.

Do you think collaborating with younger brands like Palace or Patta has opened C.P.’s extensive product archive to a new generation? 

Partnerships with brands like Palace, One Block Down, or Patta are incredible opportunities to connect the brand to a new audience; it’s up to the partner to choose which aspects of C.P. Company they want to explore. It can be innovation and technical expertise, the legacy of five decades of archive, or an authentic connection with subcultures and local communities. 

The first collab we did with Palace was deep in our archive; we were fresh from the anniversary, and we had our first meetings in our archive, which, I believe, left a remarkable impact on Gareth, Lev, and the rest of the team. 

The last one focused on our fabric expertise and technical developments, so it really depends on how the project is structured.

How important is nurturing a collaborative relationship over several collections instead of a one-off?

For us, it’s never a one-off partnership, and I believe the human element has much to do with that. We ended up being friends with many people we have collaborated with, and with some friends, we ended up collaborating.

What do these relationships and the results they yield mean for C.P.’s future?

C.P. Company is a very complex brand, rich in layers of diversity in terms of products and design visions. The Company guided by Massimo Osti was different from the one designed today by Harvey and Pungetti, and these visions talk to different customers. 

Today, we are a global brand with different customer types in different countries, and our ability to be relevant to any of them is our strength and recipe for longevity. We believe this lies in the expertise in developing good quality products and the capabilities to understand and intercept cultural changes. 

How receptive have C.P. Company’s die-hard fans been to more frequent collaborations?

I believe our hardcore fans are aware that collaborations are part of the brand’s marketing and communication toolkit. Also, the response is incredible when we’re partnering with brands that resonate into their universe—take our collaborations with adidas Spezial or Barbour, for example.

Were you ever worried they wouldn’t be?

Not worried, but always careful. I believe it’s important to respect our community, but at the same time, it’s also important to offer something new, something unexpected. As long as we’re true to our brand’s DNA, there’s nothing to worry about.