Osti did not even consider himself a fashion designer – and coming from a graphic design and communications background, he was not. That spark, that ability to talk to the public and create a reaction, stayed with him all along his career. The book tells its story through images of Osti’s most important designs: his innovations in garment dyeing, his development of new fabrics inspired by the tarps truck drivers use to batten down loads, and other materials such as rubber flax, the “Ice Jacket” that changes colors with the temperature, or “Technowool,” a wool and nylon wear-resistant “urban armor.

Massimo Osti’s oeuvre remains so relevant today that it almost needs to be written about in the present tense to be properly dissected. Second Edition of Ideas from Massimo Osti, the 432 page monograph published by Corraini and four years in the making, is the definitive look at one of the most influential and secretly revered names in Italian fashion history (copied from the high street to high fashion, his garments are the metaphorical skeleton in the closet of many of the world's most famous designer's studios). The book shows inspirations behind the designs of Massimo Osti, as well as how the logos were created with hand drawn notes and sketches for a personal touch. Not only does “Ideas from Massimo Osti” widely and clearly illustrate the stylist and his textile inventions, it also emphasises the unquestionable capacity of this Italian pioneer to influence generations of designers with his visionary power.Particularly as it was the 1980s, when fame was a social must, and swimming against the current required nerves and guts. By the mid-1990s, he was finding being both a designer and an entrepreneur gruelling, so he walked away from it all.

When he passed away in 2005, Massimo Osti left a huge legacy along with a vast and complicated inventory made of his own creations, items that he obsessivly collected and and unfinished projects.

Ideas from Massimo Osti tells the story of the birth and development of the formal and textile innovations of the creator of the clothing brands C. is the definitive look at one of the most influential and secretly revered names in Italian fashion history. Ken-Tonio Yamamoto is a director, filmmaker, and visual media artist based in Berlin and if you've been following brands like Stone Island, ACRONYM, and Nike, you most definitely have seen his work before. From Ideas from Massimo Osti: Life Savers — "A motor scooter is the preferred method of transportation for teenagers in Italy and Massimo becomes preoccupied with the disequilibrium created by school books in the backpacks of young drivers so he invents a type of vest with a rear pocket which can be tightened around the chest lending more stability to the load.

Four years in the making, the book is a veritable treasure trove – a beautiful production, sumptuously photographed, full of iconic images and containing many previously unpublished images and stories. Massimo Osti was a man of ideas, full of concepts that mattered, not layers of varnish over nothing – and he worked hard, if playfully, to make them happen.Working intensively with fabric treatments like dyes and stonewashes, he mastered the art of giving clothes an intensely worn, but not destroyed patina. P. Company and Stone Island, of one of the most respected and imitated designers of his generation (crowned the most important man of 90s menswear by Arena Homme +), whose innovations confounded the rules of the industry and created the fabrics of today. The images that accompany this story, styled by Pearmain and photographed by Alasdair McLellan, are proof of such unadulterated nowness.