“No one calls me ‘daddy’,” reflected Philipp Plein: “Except Rocket.” During this conversation, Plein’s perfectly behaved toddler sat on his father’s lap, nibbling on raw vegetables and watching Peppa Pig– and daddy Pig – on his father’s phone. Meanwhile, Plein discussed a collection that harkened back to his high school roots.
The tattoo patterns on men’s and women’s clothing referenced a collection from around 2008, when he was still shifting his focus from furniture to fashion. Plein showed it in a 500 square meter ghost train ride at the former Bread & Butter trade fair: to see the collection, guests had to brave the ride. After discussing this – plus his Swarovski ‘Pimp Machine’ from the same era – I asked Plein if he was ever nostalgic for that earlier phase of his business. “It’s very refreshing to have these kinds of thoughts sometimes. Now everything is much more calculated. We work with forecasts and merchandising plans. So everything is a bit more structured.”
The collection offered a full street-to-suit suite of unpretentious luxury for women and men. Bouclé jackets and skirts with Swarovski splashes, granny-like women’s clothing with denim accents, voluminous biker jeans and so-called ‘mobwife’ faux fur were key pieces in women’s clothing. Menswear counterparts included tattoo-etched varsity jackets and crystal-patterned suits, camo-patterned washed denim shirts and biker-accented eveningwear.
Plein’s main line may be a lot more planned these days, but the new hotel he plans to open in Milan in late 2024 should inject a new dose of his signature decadent anarchy. And about his second line Plein Sport, he added: “I don’t just do it for the money: I do it for fun.” Plein remains one of the few true renegades in the tightly controlled elite domain of luxury.
