Throughout 2021 we have been telling you about C.P. Company‘s journey through its 50 years of history through the initiatives that the brand founded by the “godfather of urban sportswear”, Massimo Osti, has planned in the past year. In 1971, when he was still a young graphic designer from Bologna, Osti created Chester Perry, his first brand, famous for its screen-printed T-shirts. The name comes directly from the comic strip series Bristow created by Frank Dickens in 1961, in which the protagonist (Bristow) works as a purchasing office employee in a company called Chester Perry. In 1978 Massimo Osti decides to change the name of the company which becomes C.P. Company, thus giving life to one of the most intense creative expressions in the history of sportswear.
In these 50 years the brand – headed by Massimo’s son, Lorenzo – has continued on its path, combining the functionality of military clothing, workwear and vintage sportswear with cutting-edge research and innovation on fabrics, enhanced by the garment dyeing technique. In fact, C.P. Company was the first company in the world to experiment with this technique in the mid ’70s.
Tradition and innovation are still the cornerstones of the brand that closes the celebrations for its 50 years with an exhibition in Milan that will open to the public on January 15 and will remain open until 17.
“CINQUANTA: A retrospective on 50 years of sportswear innovation by C.P. Company”,this is the name of the exhibition at BASE in Milan, designed in collaboration with Random Studio, a creative agency based in Amsterdam, is a retrospective dedicated to five decades of sportswear and casual made in Italy.
On the exhibition, C.P. Company president Lorenzo Osti said: “This exhibition is designed to facilitate the understanding of the essence of the brand through its most iconic garments: C.P. Company’s ability to design and create objects that resonate with contemporary society. In this way, through our garments, you will find the evocations of cities, landscapes and adventures that have most engaged and fascinated us over the past 50 years”.
