C.P. Company SS26: Goggled Icons, Pigment Obsessions, and the Cult of Functional Cool.

Massimo Osti never intended to make fashion. He made uniforms for a new kind of soldier - the urban operator, the man with a map in one pocket and a philosophy degree in the other. When Massimo Osti first introduced Chester Perry in 1971 - a name later distilled into C.P. Company by 1978 - he wasn’t simply establishing a label, but laying the groundwork for a new design language rooted in utility, experimentation, and cultural subversion - not but stalking function, reverse-engineering military pragmatism for the civilian streets.

Decades later, that mission hasn’t softened - it’s evolved. Under the precise eye of design director Leonardo Fasolo, Spring/Summer 2026 is not a reboot but a reloading of the brand’s DNA. This isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about turning the archive into a launchpad.

The SS26 collection, presented in Milan under the banner Behind the Seams, doesn’t whisper homage - it states it firmly and with technical conviction. Rather than wax poetic over a single hero piece, Fasolo and the C.P. Company team have framed the collection as a live dialogue between memory and invention. It’s as if the garments are speaking to each other across time - a 1988 goggle jacket nudging its 2026 descendant with a wink, both clad in fabrics that might well have come from another planet.

And yet, it’s not just science. It’s sorcery.

Take the dyeing. At C.P. Company, colour isn’t applied - it’s conjured. Each garment is dyed post-construction, allowing pigment to seep and settle like sediment in river stones. The effect is chromatically profound - not flat colour, but tonal storytelling. In the SS26 collection, recycled nylon Oxford (Panama-R) becomes a canvas for this alchemy, its fibres absorbing pigment like memory itself, deepening the longer you look.

Indigo, the most introspective of hues, gets a dedicated capsule. Not content with one shade, the team stretches it from the saturated melancholy of deep-sea denim to the pale tenderness of sky-bleached workwear. A pair of seamless-side trousers in the iconic 50 Fili fabric, reworked with an indigo fade, feels like something you’d discover in an artist’s attic or a chemist’s lab - equal parts romance and rigor.

For when you want to look like a space assassin but still feel like you're wearing pyjamas.

But this collection doesn’t sit still long enough to admire itself in the mirror. Function is still the heartbeat. Modular pockets abound, hidden zippers whisper rather than shout, and re-engineered field jackets offer storage systems that would make a tactical backpack blush. These are garments built for a world where you might need to carry a passport, a charger, and a reason for being - all in the same pocket.

The Metropolis Series, the brand’s urban-minded line, takes this one step further - like tailoring with a tactical mindset. Fasolo unveils Nano Titanium - a meticulously engineered nylon-polyester hybrid that catches light with the gleam of liquid metal, yet drapes with the subtle ease of a second skin, merging industrial resilience with refined tactility.

Here, a hooded jacket gleams just enough to turn heads, while a modular Pertex piece, complete with welded seams and detachable sleeves, nods to cyberpunk sensibilities without falling into costume. Even the tailoring isn’t exempt from this re-engineering: a Japanese Panama blazer with taped seams is what happens when traditional formality takes a sabbatical in a tech lab.

And then, of course, there are the goggles.

You could argue they’re gimmick. You’d be wrong. The goggles aren’t detail - they’re doctrine. Not just for show, they represent everything C.P. Company stands for: visibility, vision, and defiant utility. They don’t just let you look out - they let others know you see things differently. In SS26, they appear on jackets that feel like uniforms for the next evolution of urban life - where survival is aesthetic, and style is a form of preparedness.

The Behind the Seams installation, which debuted during Milan Men’s Fashion Week, peels back the curtain on the entire process. Not a fashion show in the traditional sense, it feels more like a textile confessional. Swatches, dye experiments, archival prototypes - it’s all laid bare. Not for hype, but for reverence. Transparency here isn’t branding - it’s a form of worship.

Fasolo isn’t just designing garments. He’s conducting autopsies on tradition and resurrecting innovation from the stitches. His first collection doesn’t just introduce himself to the C.P. faithful - it proves he’s been listening. Closely. And now, he’s speaking fluently in the house dialect, with just enough of his own accent to keep things interesting.

C.P. Company’s Spring/Summer 2026 is for those who crave substance without sacrificing sophistication, who find poetry in pigment and pride in pockets. It’s a collection that understands that the future isn’t always louder - sometimes, it’s just better built.

In a world drunk on fast fashion and digital distraction, C.P. Company reminds us that true style takes time. Time to develop. Time to dye. Time to mean something.

And when it finally arrives - goggled, dyed, and quietly defiant - it doesn’t ask for your attention.

It earns it.

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Words by AW.

Photos coutesy of CP Company.