The designer behind Toronto based brand Libero spoke to me about the inception of his brand, his ethos when it comes to fashion, and why he thinks you should buy clothes that mean something.
I had the opportunity to talk with Appugliesi over the phone for about 40 minutes and as I hung up I was left with the perception that there was one aspect of his personality that had been so omnipresent it was almost palpable. It was his resolve. And not just in his work, in everything. His friends, his family, his customers. The list goes on.
“I treat Libero already as if it’s a massive fashion brand,” Appugliesi says. “I treat every campaign as if it’s going to be walking down a Paris runway…the streets of New York…you never know who’s going to see it”
One begins to wonder how such strong conviction in a cause could be developed. But it makes sense. Appugliesi is Toronto born and raised, and from a young age he was highly involved in athletics. More specifically, competitive soccer. Over time, he cultivated his soccer skills to the extent that upon graduating high school he made the decision to move to Europe and pursue professional soccer.
“It was the best 5 years of my life, and it had such a huge impact on my growth as a person,” he tells me of his time in Europe. “Discipline became such a huge part of my life. There was no such thing as being late, if practice started at 9:00 you were there at 8:30. No debate.”
This determination and discipline Appugliesi fostered during his soccer career is something that he eventually channelled into his own brand, Libero.
Along with the development of his personal values Appugliesi became enamoured with the relationship Europeans had with clothing and how disparate it was to North Americans’ way of dress. Upon returning home Appugliesi was inspired by the European concept of fashion such that he decided to create a jacket to commemorate a bond between himself and a group of his friends.
He reached out to a photographer who happened to be a close friend of his to shoot the jacket. The photographer loved the concept and suggested he should take it beyond just a concept. After some deliberation, Appugliesi decided to run with it and subsequently sent off cold emails containing the shoot to a variety of publications. He recounted the moment saying, “The next morning, I awoke to a ton of emails asking if I had a showroom…a stock list…do I have this, do I have that."
And thus, Libero was born. Now 2 years in the making, Libero has since developed an incredibly cohesive aesthetic identity. When I inquired into the inspiration behind Libero, Appugliesi paused for a moment “Libero’s aesthetic has really just been an emulation of my own interest. My girlfriend and I, we have a great appreciation for movies, for characters.”
Libero’s aesthetic identity is crafted around the concept of “creating a movie for every collection,” as Appugliesi puts it. Every collection is thematically inspired by a different movie, a different story, and with that he hopes that his customers can also fall in love with the characters they’re seeking to portray through their designs.
“Growing up, I wanted to be the Godfather, Scarface, all of these cool characters, and I want our collections to evoke similar emotions from our customers,” Appugliesi said.
The goal for Libero has always been to create something that means something to the consumer. Over the past years he thinks that’s something that consumer culture has departed from. “I think a lot of times people are just purchasing to purchase….to get that quick serotonin hit from consuming something,” He remarked.
Although Appugliesi believes there are inherent benefits to the current consumer culture, he thinks one of the main negatives is the obsession with instant gratification, and the constant need for more. He feels many people have fallen out of love with fashion, and the clothes they’re buying. “I just want people to buy clothes for what they stand for, the story behind them, where they’re made.”
All of Libero’s clothes are hand made in Toronto by a 75 year old woman, Appugliesi tells me, and although that won’t be able to take place forever as the brand scales and grows, he believes it is aspects of the business like that which are so integral to what Libero stands for.
As our call was wrapping up, I decided to ask one last question. “Do you think there are any particular values or ethics that have been crucial in your personal development, or the development of your brand?” He paused for a moment. “Loyalty and authenticity, that’s what Libero has stood on, our honesty and integrity to our customer, and to ourselves,” Even though this was one of the first times I’d had the opportunity to speak with Adam Appugliesi, the content of his character was already crystal clear, and I knew he meant that.
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