IUTER is a concept brand with a strong connection with the city of Milan, where the company chose to build the creative headquarter and its own production plant. Founded in 2002, in the early years Iuter followed the classic route of the underground brand: collaborations with emerging rappers popped out along with limited edition printed t-shirts, standing out within collections mostly made of all-over sweats and bold printing. During the mid 2010s something changed: the brand opened up to international influences and launched co-branding projects with companies based in Japan, United States, England.

Nowadays Iuter is worldwide recognized and boasts a highly distinctive visual identity, deeply rooted in pop culture, also thanks to street collaborations such as those with Abarth, Teletubbies or others with graffiti artists with the likes of Zuek. Over the years, Iuter has developed a solid and highly distinctive aesthetic identity, built upon the high quality of textures and prints, also relying on several collaborative collaborations that borrows from design, contemporary fashion, sport and many other areas. Nowadays the Italian brand’s collection are multi-faceted and extremely wide: signature garments include Iuter T-shirts and sweatshirts with Nepalese and Tibetan graphics, pile fleeces with campo pattern and all-over printing, cotton sweatpants, pullover with tie-dye prints, quilted jackets and accessories.

MILANO IMPERFECTA is a collection of pieces that builds on the social, cultural and intellectual friction of the city and translates it into antagonistic compositions, where elegance is in dialogue with destruction and the obsession of vandalism embraces concept and form. It is a fusion of worlds that at first seem distant but are all part of the same lived experience.

Undoubtedly the best-known graffiti writer of his era, Ivano Atzori (aka DUMBO) began his career as a teenage vandal, tagging the streets of Milan. Growing up in a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, he used this medium to grab the attention of everyone from journalists to the fashion establishment to regular passers-by. Since 2015, he has lived and worked in the southwest corner of Sardinia, having founded the creative studio Pretziada there. Milano Imperfecta is his first capsule collection and is the latest development in Ivano Atzori’s research and practice of the last 25 years. His ongoing need to reshape, augment and remodel the city in which he was raised and with which he has remained in constant (and uncensored) dialogue. MILANO IMPERFECTA aims to represent the many voices that are often considered too marginal for cities to listen to. MILANO IMPERFECTA starts over, creating a horizontal line that ignores the geographic dialectic of the center and the outskirts and recentering the discourse on the strength and potential of human relationships. It focuses on the forces that, by acting upon the territory, improve it and make it vital and alluring.

The MILANO IMPERFECTA collection was born from a process of research that started with the clothing worn and accumulated by Ivano Atzori during his life and his artistic career. Working closely alongside the IUTER style office, Ivano has reinterpreted both classic and utility garments, imbuing them with authority thanks to the superimposition of high-impact designs that reflect his artistic obsession. The main print used in the collection is a classic “buffed” (erased) Dumbo tag that transforms into a pattern, synonymous with resistance. A historical photo taken by Lele Saveri in the carriages of the M2 is decontextualized and used as a photo poster digitally printed onto a formal suit in 164-gram virgin wool. Other marks and signs, all synonymous with actions, freely conquer the fabrics used.

The capsule is completed by a hoodie with details particularly suited to life on the street – 400 g/m2 non-brushed jersey, mesh net on the hood around the ears and long ribbed cuffs with knuckle covers, an ice gray on black all-over print – and a series of four t-shirts with the artist's iconic drawings, graphics and “proclamation quotes”. All garments are Made in Italy and boast a special jacquard label with the MILANO IMPERFECTA claim in red on black.

MILANO IMPERFECTA brought together some of the most unconventional creatives from Milan and currently they are shaping the future of creativity and they are Edward Buchanan (creative director), Aurora Marchese (tattoo artist), Carlino Maggiar and Martino Ribeiro (free spirits), Simona Coltello (creative director), Tony Brugnoli (photographer), Gloria Maria Cappelletti (creative director), Williams Obrou (artist), Simone Guzeto (photographer).

words MIRA WANDERLUST

@mirawanderlust