The man who has designed a tuxedo for climbing: "There are those without a sense of humor, we are talking about fashion!"

One of the star garments of BOSS X Phipps, the collection that the American Spencer Phipps (San Francisco, 36 years old) has designed together with Boss, is a velvet tuxedo.

“Imagine that you get married and you want to climb in your wedding”, the Californian designer proposes between laughs when we ask him about a possible use scenario for this “adventure tuxedo” that he has included in the capsule collection that goes on sale on the 19th of this month.

Everything becomes clear, however, when we go to the genesis of this piece, which emerged during the joint creative process between Phipps and Marco Falcioni, creative manager of BOSS.

“The truth is that it has been a lot of fun working with Marco, because he knows a lot about clothes, tailoring and fashion, and he was very interested in my brand, so he saw the possibility of collaborating on a collection based on leftover fabrics and garments. their own warehouses,” he explains.

“Since we were going to work with pre-existing materials, I didn't feel like having a previous script, so I arrived at the Boss headquarters in Germany ready to see what I found.

We found a run of velvet jackets, and we thought we'd turn them into something Phipps."

It was not the first contact between the two: this same year, Phipps participated in the

, hosted by Raven Smith, where she covered her experience in fashion with humor and anecdotes.

Spencer Phipps wears BOSS X Phipps clothesRaphaël Chatelain

The personal style to which he refers is a heterodox mix of influences that crystallized in the foundation of his brand, in 2018. The starting point was technical and adventure clothing, for climbing or hiking, but less arid and more colorful than the usual

“I'm interested in doing very practical things with an interesting design, and also great fashion gestures that can be useful.

The key is that everything is simple and fun, that it speaks to different subcultures and that it serves to introduce new voices in the field of adventure clothing, which is usually quite monotonous, ”he explains.

"The adventure clothing industry, until a few years ago, was very white, very

, like people who eat muesli," he jokes.

"And it's a shame, because in the world of adventure sports there is much more diversity in terms of color, sexuality or gender identity."

Phipps always wanted to dedicate himself to fashion –"well, when I was little I wanted to work at Disneyland, it seemed like the best job in the world"–, and before founding his own brand he worked in Paris with legends such as Marc Jacobs –"he has a lot of intuition for

, think in images”– and Dries Van Noten –”much more enigmatic, but also very focused on the business, on what customers want”–.

He founded his brand in Paris but this year he has moved to Los Angeles, the natural home of collections that are inspired by his passion for nature and for an imaginary halfway “between a Robert Redford film and

”, he defines.

Everything from the Phipps x BOSS collection, at once and everywhere.BOSS

The result of this experience is a firm covered by a sense of humor that takes the gravity out of the usual epic in the world of sportswear.

“There are people without a sense of humor, and I feel sorry for them, but at the end of the day we are talking about clothes.

Technical clothing tends to be too serious, which is a logical thing in high-performance firms that design garments for expeditions.

When your life depends on what you wear, there is no room for laughter.

But I prefer fun.

Dressing up is fun.

There are clothes that are a bit absurd but they make you feel happy.

And happiness is important.”

Among the founding values ​​of Phipps is caring for the planet, although Phipps prefers to talk about responsibility than sustainability, a term tainted by

and the bombast common in the industry.

“Sustainability is not something that we can achieve absolutely.

We will never reach zero impact.

I prefer to be responsible and do things in the best possible way with the information and means I have at a given moment”, he says.

Hence, its collaboration with Boss focuses on responsible or directly recycled materials.

The last term of the equation is the first for the many fans of the brand: Phipps himself, who accidentally started acting as a model for his brand, which makes some sense, because he confesses to designing with himself in mind.

“It was during covid.

We needed a model who spoke English with an American accent for a video, but he was locked up and surrounded by French people.

So I thought: 'I am available'.

It was a question of budget!

But people found it funny, so we continued”.

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