Product

Dainese

Scott Campbell Capsule

The genesis of the project began this past December in Moscow at the 2011 Pirelli calendar launch.  Campbell met up with his friend Alessandro Simonetti, an Italian photographer, who introduced him to Renato Montagner, Dainese’s Art Director and founder of the Changedesign creative agency.  “It was cool to be among friends and we definitely bonded because it was minus 4 degrees outside,” Campbell recalled.  “When Renato said he worked with Pirelli and Dainese, I said,  ‘That’s my whole world, that’s everything I spend my money on right there, the holy trinity.’”  Indeed, for bike lovers, the triumvirate is as much the holy grail of engineering as it is the chic index of distinctive branding.  Montagner’s brainstorm to “ride on art” led him to commission Campbell to “tattoo” customized tires.  Campbell was also asked to design an accompanying Dainese leather jacket, which, he admitted, made him more comfortable because it harkened back to his early days of scrawling on his punk friend’s jackets; it represented an evolution of sorts, from teen dalliance to adult couture.  “I was thinking of asymmetrical patterns, kind of Mad Max style, so that the jacket tells a narrative the way a body covered in tattoos does,” Campbell explained. He said he planned to use different techniques – laser engraved leather, embroidery, stitching and silk screening – to add depth and character to the finished piece.  “It’s that sensibility of a texture and a narrative across the whole jacket.  It’s just layers and layers of stuff.”