Palm Angels’ Francesco Ragazzi brings fashion to Formula 1

All photos by Jake Nevins.

I first encountered Palm Angels, the luxury Milanese streetwear label, when I came across a photo of Lamar Jackson, quarterback of my favorite football team, walking head-to-toe into MetLife Stadium. of the brand, a diamond-encrusted Baltimore Ravens pendant hanging around his neck. My curiosity was immediately aroused. I discovered that the brand’s embrace by some of the world’s greatest athletes was no coincidence: Palm Angels had in fact begun as a book of black-and-white photographs by creative director Francesco Ragazzi, whose artful documentation of the Los Angeles skateboarding scene Angeles spawned a loyal legion of fans and ultimately a label of its own, one firmly committed to merging American sportswear with a sense of Italian sophistication. It was fitting that then the Netflix series Formula 1: drive to survive Ragazzi, who grew up watching Formula 1 with his father at Monza, sparked a significant increase in interest in racing, and was ready to make his move. Fast forward to last weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, where Palm Angels dressed the drivers for the American Haas Team Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen. To mark the collaboration, the brand invited Interview to spend a few days in Miami, a weekend joyride with a visit to the four-day dinner pop-up Carbone Beach (featuring performances by Ludacris, Tyreek Hill and Ivanka Trump, among others), a party for a price $49 million mansion overlooking Biscayne Bay, and of course the Grand Prix itself, where I got to watch the action from the best seat in the house: the MoneyCoin Haas garage.

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JAKE NEVINS: Good morning.

FRANCESCO RAGAZZI: Hey, how are you?

NEVINS: Sorry to interrupt your breakfast.

RAGAZZI: No, no. I always do two things at the same time.

NEVINS: How was your weekend?

RAGAZZI: Good, good, good. Not bad to be in Miami. When work is in Miami, it is never Real work.

NEVINS: Well, nobody works in Miami. But that’s a good place to start. You’ve always talked about Palm Angels as a fusion of Italian and American sensibilities. Miami has a similar transatlantic vibe, right?

RAGAZZI: Yes, of course. I think it’s connected to the brand’s DNA, starting with palm trees. And Palm Angels has always been a mix of East Coast/West Coast with Italy, so it’s really part of the brand’s story. The truth is that I have always been in this area because I grew up with my parents between Palm Beach and Italy. So it really is a part of me.

NEVINS: Oh, I didn’t know that. My father also lives in Palm Beach. So it’s clear that the brand started eight years ago as an offshoot of your incredibly successful book of skate photos. Now you are venturing into another sport with wheels: Formula 1. How did this collaboration start?

RAGAZZI: I have always been a fan of Formula 1, because I used to watch races with my father. But I think everything changed with Drive to survive. They gave me a second chance to go back and watch it, but it also brought a new audience. Kids started watching it and got interested in the sport, all the new races. So I think this is a way to appeal to a new generation of Formula 1 fans with Palm Angels. All major sponsorships are virtually impossible for a brand like Palm Angels. We are big, but not enormous. So I say: if we do something, it doesn’t have to be a sponsorship, just one partnershipwhere we really do something that feels different for the world of Formula 1, for the fashion world.

NEVINS: You didn’t want to just stick the logo on anything.

RAGAZZI: No. I really want to develop a collection, do an activation in Miami, in Monte Carlo, bring our audience to the Formula 1 audience. Just like last night, they were really friends of the brand and the word of Formula 1 mixed together. This is what I love.

NEVINS: Yesterday during the race it struck me that there is something very useful about the drivers’ uniforms. Besides looking good, they have to do a lot more. They have to be functional and it has to function in the intense heat of a small car. So I’m curious: When you came up with the actual uniforms, how did you go about combining the functional requirements of racing gear with the Palm Angels aesthetic?

RAGAZZI: Well, we also wanted to change the idea of ​​merchandise. All Formula 1 brands are cheap merchandise. We wanted to move away from that and create a kind of collection that feels like sportswear, but refined, something that you can wear during the race, but also for the race. We always try to take something and elevate it to the maximum.

NEVINS: Right. You said that as a child you watched F1 with your father. What do you remember about that?

RAGAZZI: Living in Italy, it’s easy to be a Ferrari fan, and that makes you watch F1 racing. Living close to Monza, where the races take place, it’s in the spirit of Italians to be passionate about sports cars, you know? So it’s almost like football. On Sunday you watch a football match or a Formula 1 race. It is a moment when you come together with your family, with your friends. It’s more than just sports. It brings people together and that’s nice.

NEVINS: As you said, Drive to survive led to a lot of interest in F1. But your interest in the sport preceded that. When did you decide you wanted to get involved?

RAGAZZI: Exactly, now there’s always more excitement around it. I remember when they first did the first Grand Prix in Miami, it was like the Super Bow, a huge event. I really want to take advantage of this opportunity. So I remember we approached Haas and we presented as one crazy deck, you know? I said, “Listen, we want to do this, we want to do that.” Then we met someone from Haas who was very receptive and really understood that this could be a great opportunity for them too to gain new customers and a new audience. If you make something fun, people want to come. And this is roughly what happened. They understood the opportunity. I wouldn’t say we were the very first, but we were the first to do it right.

NEVINS: Americans are generally quite willing to embrace a spectacle like this, especially if it looks cool.

RAGAZZI: Yes. And we’re all about bringing things together that don’t really necessarily fit together. But they bring something new, something exciting. The Italian brand with an American team. I love to combine new energies and create something exciting.

NEVINS: The first time I saw Palm Angels was when the quarterback of my favorite football team wore a head-to-toe Palm Angels look as he entered the stadium for a game. I was like, “Okay, this shit is cool.”

RAGAZZI: Really? Who is that?

NEVINS: Lamar Jackson.

RAGAZZI: Oh wow.

NEVINS: Do you know him?

RAGAZZI: Yes, yes, of course.

NEVINS: He’s been an NFL MVP twice. You’re a sports fan, right?

RAGAZZI: To some extent, yes. I love soccer. I love Formula 1. This is an exciting moment for them and for fashion. Athletes were the worst dressed men in the 80s. Imagine the basketball players in the ’80s. It was really bad. They were not recognized by the fashion world.

NEVINS: But a lot has changed. Now you have Russell Westbrook wearing Thom Browne kilts. We just featured Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in our magazine.

RAGAZZI: Now, it’s really where you want to be.