A story by Marco Lagana

Italy is not known to have created a lot of sportswear brands especially sneakers. Sneaker has become an intrinsic part of our wardrobe. If you are a real sneaker fan, well this is a brilliant time. For a while now there have a slew of young brands challenging the status quo, bringing fresh impetus and creating unique sneaker designs stern from pure passion and inspiration.

We had the chance to speak to one of the rock stars in the sneaker industry right now and yes he is an Italian.  Marco Lagana shoes range is designed with a youthful, independent spirit, blending the key aspects of premium quality and construction that make the shoes special with an aspirational, unconventional attitude and smart style for those who wear with emotions.

We had a chance to meet with Marco and ask some questions about his journey.

Spynewsmagazine:   Can you tell me about your brand, where did the idea come from?

Marco Lagana: I am from 1991, I am POP, I lived and grown up in the era when Andy Warhol’s supermarket art pieces were nothing more than reality. At the same time, the world of footwear is really deep rooted in the Italian culture, so for me starting this brand was a kind of juxtaposition of my way of communicating (which is pop) and the product that I was developing which is really traditional in the way it is made. This is actually the reason why the first collection has been called ” The Pop – Art Collection” with the word play between Pop and Artisanal.

So the goal that i had in mind was to create something really new, starting from my roots and my traditions. Anytime I think about a collection, there is always something deep behind. I am mostly a storyteller than a proper designer. You can see it from the different collections. Never ever happened that a product didn’t have a reason why it existed.

Spynewsmagazine:  Tell me a bit about yourself, about your professional path?

Marco Lagana: I studied fashion design – not shoes at all – at Politecnico di Milano. In this period I met a person that changed my perception of a Fashion product, he’s still a mentor for me, and he’s the CEO of Stone Island, Mr. Carlo Rivetti. Under his guide I graduated in 2013 with a clothes project, but I had the opportunity also to work with Fratelli Rossetti to complete the collection, adding 3 different pairs of shoes, and that was the moment when i first designed a pair of sheos.

One month after my degree, I took a night train from Milan to Paris, I had a job – found on facebook – for a small company to design their shoes collection, the brand was called “Camille Tanoh“. In that occasion i had the opportunity also to work with another big name of the footwear industry, Mr. Pierre Hardy, as a social media strategy manager for the communication online of the brand. After almost a year in France, I looked at my self in the mirror, and I said, I want to be back in Italy to shout out loud about what Italy is to the whole world in my personal way, and that’s where everything started from.

Spynewsmagazine:  What are the greatest sources of inspiration for your works?

Marco Lagana: My inspiration is my surrounding and my past. I always try to create something contemporary. I always take inspiration from art, architecture and specially design. The green undersole of the classic shoes for example came from Louis Kahn‘s fountain in the Salk Institute in California. Brutalism is simple and straight. By the way most of the time the idea of the collection come straight to my mind because i have something to say, and the best way for me is to express it through my product and communication. We invest a lot in the image of the brand and the campaigns we create always with the artist in fashion such as Adriano Cisani (@whatastreet) or Ramona Tabita (stylist).

Spynewsmagazine:  Tell us about the materials you use?

Marco Lagana: Normally I use leather for most of all the shoes. A signature of the brand is that the lining is always in natural biscuit veal. Anyway you will always find in any collection one fabric which is representative of the collection. For The Pop Art I used a japanese Kevlar fiber fabric to represent the man made in the pop culture contrasting the handicraft side. In The Italian Picnic the link is easier, I used a checkered cotton which is quite common as a picnic table cloth. For R.U.G.A. I used hammered leather to represent wrinkles (which is actually the meaning of the word ruga in italian) and velvet, this one as a link to grandparents’ dusty house. Than in the last two season materials are not really linked to the idea of the collection but more to the aesthetic that its needed.

Spynewsmagazine: How do you want your customers to feel when they wear shoes?

Marco Lagana: Italian. Not in the way of thinking, but because they have to bring an italian story with them.

Spynewsmagazine:  The first and most important and job of any brand is to tell its story. How are you leveraging social media in telling your brands story?

Marco Lagana: I use more social media to communicate the brand identity. By the way in some period of the year, mostly when the collections are going to be release, I always use to create a little teasing moment, revealing something new about what is going to be in store. Everyday posts have to be like pills for my customers. They have to understand the brand ideas and the brand codes without even caring about it. The name and the shoes have to become a part of their imaginary without caring about it.

Spynewsmagazine:  What future plans do you have for wear Marco Laganà?

Marco Lagana: We’re going to release our own Online Boutique, and surely we will expand our market in Italy, Asia and Japan. We’ve also release a collaboration with the n. 1 chef best in the world, mr. Massimo Bottura and we’ll launch it pretty soon with some selected retailer.

Spynewsmagazine: Where can we buy your products?

Marco Lagana: At the moment we have some selected store in different countries, here you can read some of our best. In Italy we worked since the beginning with 10 Corso Como, in France with Garrice, in Japan with Takashimaya, in China with Sanlipop, in Czech Republic with Footshop.

by Anderson Azugbene