Lapo gave a very interesting interview to the Uomo Vogue Magazine.
In a glass-fronted Atelier behind Ferrari’s Geneva salon stand sits an FF, the company’s unconventionally stylish all-wheel drive fastback. It’s surrounded by countless fabric samples, colour swatches, and carefully chosen images that evoke Ferrari’s peerless heritage. The car itself has pin-striped seats, while the rest of its cabin subverts Ferrari’s modernism with classically elegant touches. It’s a showcase for Tailor Made, the apogee of a burgeoning desire in the high end car business to offer clients the richest possible personalisation service. It also happens to be Lapo Elkann’s latest project.
“Tailor Made will help Ferrari’s clients tailor their cars in a very personal, specific way”, he says, casting his eye across the Geneva Atelier as guests come and go. “It’s a bespoke service, like visiting Huntsman or Anderson & Sheppard or whoever your favourite Savile Row tailor is. I’m interested in intriguing fabrics, in unusual materials, in really investigating all the potential for these beautiful cars. Carbon fibre, cashmere, titanium… Luxury today has to be open to new materials and new elements. Leather is great but it’s not the only material you can use on the interior”.
One could call Lapo an accidental iconoclast. The scion of perhaps Italy’s greatest industrial dynasty, he describes himself as a “global Italian”, professes to be deeply proud of his roots, but refuses to be defined or imprisoned by them. A restlessly peripatetic childhood has blessed him with a unique world-view, one that doesn’t always sit well with his compatriots even in these difficult days for Italy.
“I like my country but I don’t think like an Italian”, he says carefully. “It’s a complex, complicated difficult country to make things happen in. It’s a country with a major potential that’s currently unexpressed and I want to be part of the expression of it. What’s holding it back? Too many things for me to explain in a short time…”. We’re sitting on the roof-top of a private member’s club in London’s Shoreditch area, which gives us an amazing view over the city’s embattled financial district. I’m an Irishman, living in London, with links to Ferrari and Italy.
Who better to push for a diagnosis of Italy’s travails than Lapo? He measures his words carefully, and exhales a cloud of cigarette smoke before speaking. “There is bureaucracy, a gerontocracy”, he says. “In the business part, in the political part, in the religious part. But there are great realities, very interesting companies, people who have created companies that have a global perspective even though they have come from small areas in Italy. Great creators…”. A helicopter buzzes between London’s shimmering new skyscrapers. More cigarette smoke.
“The Italian market in a way is quite provincial, and if you want to be global you can’t act as you might act in Italy. [long pause] It’s a complicated country to explain, more so nowadays than it was. There is a charm in the dysfunction but that’s what makes business complicated. It doesn’t help you to take risks, which you have to do. You need to understand the level of risk you are taking, and this is not a country that supports you or helps you in that direction. It makes things complicated if you want to be innovative or cutting edge. Look, being cutting edge in this market doesn’t mean you’re cutting edge in a global market”.
Lapo travels constantly, so he knows of what he speaks. A constant whirl of ideas, thoughts and schemes, he’s a self-confessed dreamer yet one with sufficient passion and dedication to realise them. Last year, Lapo was in London a lot – “London is like a girlfriend I loved then really fell out with”, he says, “but now I’ve fallen in love with her again. There is unbelievable art here, great communication people, great financial people, it’s a very energetic city, it puts me in a good mood…” – but this year, the affair seems to have cooled. I still try to see him when he’s in town, most recently while he delivered a well-received talk to the students at the Royal College of Art’s prestigious postgraduate transport design module. Faced with a roomful of young talent, Lapo quickly went off-message, laid himself bare, and they loved him all the more for it.
Today, the thick, wavy Agnelli hair is cut into a more preppy style, and Lapo’s apparel is studiedly casual. But you don’t have to look hard to uncover the steeliness with which Lapo navigates his frenzied daily existence. His ups and downs have been well-documented, though less so outside Italy, which is probably why he feels so comfortable in London, Paris or New York. What is not in doubt is that, whoever’s son he is, or whichever country sired him, he has tangible charisma. The clothes help, of course, and he wears things with a more natural sense of style than any man I’ve ever met.
But who, exactly, is Lapo Elkann? “I’m a freestyle creative entrepreneur”, he claims. “Not businessman, no. I like to create ventures in which creativity stands at the centre. I’m never satisfied. I think you can always do more which is both my strength and weakness in life. I like to apply my mind to different fields, to create bridges between areas that never normally talk to each other”. Italia Independent is the perfect vehicle for this cross-pollination.
Last year’s partnership between Gucci and Fiat generated headlines and, as well as his well-received Tailor Made project, he recently steered Swiss watch-maker Hublot into bed with Ferrari. He’s a one-man creativity hub out of which all manner of things spin at a dizzying, sometimes chaotic velocity. But don’t make the mistake of thinking there is no rigour here. “Italia Independent is about writing your own story every day, in an independent way, which means refusing to compromise”, he says. “We don’t impose looks of a certain kind. We want our clients to build up their own personal taste and mix things. We are a brand of contamination, we are not a brand of imposition”. Lapo also looks way beyond the normal supply chain, and is uniquely placed to do so.
Talk to him about cars for five minutes, and it’s clear that they are more than just in his blood or part of the family business. He understands their allure implicitly. “I try cars, I try them all. Cars need to be sexy, because we’re not talking about biscuits here. A car needs to be fucking good looking, it needs to be hot. For me design is 70 per cent. But a good looking car can still be killed if you bring it to market at the wrong moment”. “I like to work with automotive and aerospace because I get to have things that other companies don’t get to have”, he adds.
“That’s one of our potential assets. We need to leverage that more. We need to push further, working in this innovative way. That is not fashion, that is style. Fashion is transient and I don’t want to be part of that”. Is there a Lapo mission statement? I doubt it. He cherishes authenticity, in people, in life, in products. Charmed life or not, he is genuinely humble. Maybe, like Icarus, he flew too close to the sun, and paid the price. Now he’s learning to fly again, and seems to be enjoying it. “I love Winston Churchill. I love the wisdom he had, the sagacity. I like people who are independent minded. People who aren’t part of clans or systems, who are talented and free, and able to do things without being corrupted by the system. The best thing in the world is not saying yes, it’s being able to say no”.
Jason Barlow, L'Uomo Vogue, April 2012 (n. 430)
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