Interview with Paolo and Lorenzo, founders of the brand In The Shade of The Morning Sun, which combines impeccable craftsmanship and environmentally conscious practices.

Who are you and what do you do?

We are Paolo and Lorenzo, founders of In The Shade of The Morning Sun. It is a new born brand with which we want to reinterpret men’s wardrobe essentials by combining functional design, the use of excellent materials and a real concern for environmental impact. Let’s say that these are also the three fundamental and non-negotiable elements of our idea of innovation. A certain individual taste can then be declined on them, and in fact we represent very different aesthetic sensitivities.

You come from architecture: why did you want to throw yourselves into fashion?

We believe that many of the barriers between the different artistic and creative disciplines are obsolete today, and that many of the definitions of widely spread and established sectors and professional figures are limiting. Lorenzo has a background in Law and Business Administration. Paolo in Industrial Product Design. We believe that an effective creative approach such as Design Thinking, which has strongly influenced the path of both of us, can be applied and extended to different sectors, from design in its broadest sense, to technology, to business.

How did you meet us?

When we launched our project we naturally turned to friends who already had a background in the fashion world. One of these people, a designer of one of the Italian brands we like the most and whose name we won’t mention, strongly advised us to explore your products and the possibility of collaborating with Canclini.

Excellent! We have always said that our fabrics can be multi-purpose: what prompted the decision to use shirting fabrics like ours for underwear?

High-end men’s boxer shorts have long been strictly in poplin, so exploring shirting fabrics was a necessary step. From there we felt we had to experiment with something more ‘innovative’, and we fell in love with your RIGENERATO.

What do you like about RIGENERATO?

We decided to use RIGENERATO for two reasons. On the one hand, using an excellent yarn that would otherwise go to waste allows us to go straight to the heart of the sustainability issue. On the other, we were looking for a material that was not ‘evanescent’ and semi-transparent because our boxer shorts want to be ‘loungewear’ as well as underwear. So, we really liked that the fiber regeneration process would result in a more structured end product, offering the strength and absorbency of cotton with a visual and tactile impact somewhere between cotton and linen.

Talk about sustainability: what does it mean to you?

Sustainability is a very broad topic with an equally broad number of definitions, more or less useful. The bottom of the matter, however, boils down to the question: how can we cultivate our lifestyle, our passions, our expressions, without harming ourselves and those who will come after us? In the fashion world, it seemed to us that the issues that could be immediately set upon were different. With the use of durable, low environmental impact materials in the product as well as in the packaging. With production as localized as possible, to maintain control over quality and the supply chain. And, above all, with a design that survives the seasons and the years, without chasing the moment. Ultimately, we dream of a product that will stay with us for a long time, both in form and substance.

CASUAL MOMENT: your brand has a very particular and philosophical name: how did you choose it?

In the Shade of the Morning Sun is a phrase we found particularly evocative and which is quoted in the lyrics of the song ‘True Faith’ by New Order. Their music has always been important in our lives and it seemed like a good idea to include them in the project. After all, everything we are doing is about connecting the dots of a life.