Ten c's Alessandro Pungetti on the Art of Timeless Design
Since its founding in 2010, there has been no compromise for Ten c - fashion should be designed to be timeless.
Designing and creating products intended to last the test of time is easier said than done. With trends shifting faster than ever, the fashion industry continues to accelerate at a breakneck pace, leaving many hopeless to keep up.
Left to decide between chasing the next trend to maintain favour with consumer demands or design beyond the moment, brands are left scrambling to fine-tune their balance. For Ten c, there is no compromise; fashion should be designed to be timeless.
In this piece, we interview Ten c’s Creative Director - Alessandro Pungetti - to explore:
The key to creating timeless products
How to avoid following trends
Evolving a brand while avoiding stagnation
The art of successful collaborations
It’s this commitment to timelessness, an art form mastered by Creative Director, Alessandro Pungetti, that’s seen Ten c continually rise to new peaks without sacrificing its core values: “timeless and iconic garments are created to live and age with you,” as outlined in its manifesto.
While the fashion industry continues to transform at an extreme pace, fuelling its ongoing issue with sustainability, Ten c remains true to its dedication to timeless design, championed wholeheartedly by the man at the helm, who sheds light on the fundamentals of creating desirable products that last.
The Ten c manifesto speaks to designing and creating pieces that are intended to be timeless, When creating products with the intention of longevity, what are the most important factors to consider?
The most important thing to consider is how the product will be utilised. In that, the two key design factors are how it will be used and how durable it will be. Creating replicable products designed to be durable is at the root of Ten c’s design thinking, which takes military pieces as inspiration and reinterprets them through a contemporary lens.
Ultimately, this thinking is set less by fashion and more by functional design. A good reference point is what many consider to be the greatest example of 20th-century design, Bauhaus, and how they conceptualised and approached design.
When you’re designing these pieces, how do you ensure that quality remains consistent without compromising your visual language?
When conceiving a goal and thinking about how you’ll achieve it, you need to be straightforward and to the point. In a way, you have to sacrifice some creativity to stay in your lane. By doing so, you maintain a strong bond with the products you intend to create because you remain focused on the essentials of design.
One example would be the garment dying process that we utilise throughout collections. It’s a complicated process, and although an alternative process would make it easier to achieve our design goals, we maintain our focus because we think it’s the best way to do it. Through our continued experimentation in this area, we avoid compromise and uphold our values.
Given fashion’s sustainability issue, do you believe that all brands share a responsibility to create long-lasting products?
Absolutely, yes; of course. Ten c is a community, which started with an idea to have pieces for a long time. We believe this a good approach to having responsibility for the cause.
By building pieces that last, and are timeless, we discourage waste and throwing things away; we want our community to keep their pieces close to them for the longest time. This is the correct way to approach the sustainability issue, and those who don’t have this approach to design also bear a responsibility for what is happening.
When designing with the intention of creating long-lasting pieces, how do you avoid following trends?
It’s my personality. With Ten c, the idea, the thinking that I apply is not only about fashion but about life. I don’t like being too close to trends because I’m not a trendy person. I don’t want to be a trendy person. I don’t believe in that.
Of course, I know very well what is happening in the world, which trends are happening, and how society is changing, as I don’t want to be a person of the past century.
I always want to give a point of view which is contemporary and modern about what’s happening, but without aligning myself with trends. It’s my way of seeing modernity and what’s occurring through the lens of my personality, reading society and bringing these observations into apparel.
With timelessness at the forefront of your mind when designing, how do you avoid the brand stagnating and ensure its continued evolution?
I think about this all the time, for all collections, almost every day, because it’s a very big question. It’s a big problem, of course, to be true to yourself and create products that last forever while at the same time consistently innovating. Although this sometimes proves difficult, the final result is worth it because, without compromise, the story is much stronger.
For me, creativity is 90% work and 10% talent. To reach the goals you set when designing a new collection, you must work in great depth every day.
You have to see what’s happening in the world, how the habits of people are changing, climate change, and people’s tastes and how they perceive things, using your personality as a filter to give it back. In this way, you provide solutions to the people that you see as your reference.
To give an example regarding Ten c regarding evolution, we started with our famous material, Original Japanese Jersey and seven silhouettes. We looked to translate this idea across every category because I believe that Ten c is a way of seeing, living, and building your identity; it’s you wearing clothes, not clothes wearing you.
As the brand progresses and evolves, how do you inspire brand loyalty?
There’s a common thread that exists across all collections. We have an identity that is recognisable and that we respect, as well as the identities of our clients.
The wearer stays at the foreground; their personality and values aren’t clouded by the clothes they wear. Instead, Ten c is a tool that they can use to express themselves.
Collaboration has become a significant part of how the fashion industry operates today. Do you consider collaborations an essential part of building a brand?
Yes and no. I think the most important part of ensuring a collaboration make sure, is that the two brands have a strong identity.
This way, you can create stronger, more important products as both brands bring a set of strong characteristics to the table. You’re able to play on each other’s strengths, with each brand allowing the other to see something that you’ve not yet seen or considered, which can support both brands’ development.
The way I see it is, collaboration is a form of enrichment. That was the case for the collaboration we did with sacai three years ago.
How sacai saw Ten c was very important to me because they showed me something that I hadn’t seen yet; they had another way of thinking that helped me think differently. At the same time, it was important to sacai as we provided them with new materials, such as OJJ, and our garment dying process, which they’d never done before.
You mentioned that both brands should have a strong identity to collaborate successfully, is this the key to co-creating products without diluting your design principles?
So long as your brand has a strong identity, it cannot physically be overwhelmed or diluted by the other. The diluting process happens when the brands collaborating have nothing in common, or when one is far stronger than the other, resulting in a lack of balance.