The third week of September - Milan Fashion Week - might be one of the fashion world’s busiest weeks of the year, but the Culted friends and family know that when you work hard, you play hard too, and that’s why it’s the perfect time for a link up. On the last Saturday of MFW, we hit up a spot infamous for its soirées, Bar Basso on Via Plinio, with ellesse to celebrate the release of its brand-new LSR sneakers. Here’s what went down.
Gathering the likes of DJ Fiona Zanetti, who also co-hosted the event, model Kit Price, photographer Ciesay, and plenty more in the heart of Milan in the middle of fashion month is no easy task. But when the occasion calls for it, the Culted friends and family make sure to show up, and the release of ellesse’s LSR sneaker is definitely worth celebrating. Marking 65 years strong and a new direction for the brand, the LSR is a step into the luxury fashion space that blends ellesse’s heritage with contemporary designs. Put simply, it’s a big deal.
Hitting up Bar Basso on Saturday night after the day’s regular schedule of shows subsided, we bumped into Kit Price by the custom-wrapped Fiat 500 in ellesse/LSR graphics situated just outside the venue, before catching up with Fiona Zanetti sipping signature cocktails at the bar, and finding model Callum Harper and Culted’s founder and Editor in Chief Pavel Dler swapping stories from fashion week so far on Bar Basso’s historic seats. You might have already spotted the ellesse-ified Fiat 500 driving round the streets in Milan, given that the car and the oversized LSR shoebox on its roof, has been roaming around the city all day, reaching Bar Basso just in time for the event.
Hosting our Milan Fashion Week takeover with ellesse at Bar Basso just makes sense, considering it plays off Bar Basso and ellesse’s heritage as two brands both ingrained within Italian culture. Originally founded in Umbria, ellesse has been bringing its elevated Italian style to the sports fashion world for the past sixty-five years, and similarly Bar Basso is a huge part of Milanese culture as the historic cocktail bar that actually invented the Negroni Sbagliato.
Even more than that, Milan is also the ideal place to celebrate ellesse’s LSR because the sneaker is rooted in the brand’s past sixty-five years as an Italian sports giant, known for its technical sports fashion and elevated for a modern wardrobe. Inspired by the archive and reimagined for today, the overarching design concept of ellesse’s LSR is derived from one of the brand’s greatest pieces: the iconic LASER shoe.
The LSR sneaker has “made in Italy” written all over it, from its heritage to where it's manufactured, which is why bringing Italy’s own sports fashion giant, ellesse to Milan’s iconic Bar Basso in the midst of Milan Fashion Week, uniting two historic Italian brands, just made sense.
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