Mister rabbit says, “A moment of realization is worth a thousand prayers.” – Mickey Knox, Natural Born Killers
And the guys from Florence – Giacomo Cerbai, Gabriele Bensi and Lilit Boninsegni – know it! Their nabohu.com is a work of ingenuity, a refined tool of research, a democratic “container of niche contents”.
Founded in 2018 in Florence, nabohu.com – Natural Born Humans Store – is a sentimental tribute to the more cynical Oliver Stone’s movie Natural Born Killers. It’s an online shopping platform for fashion trendsetters that gives space to well-selected labels. It’s a digital project for black addicted. Above all, the platform is an unconventional showcase for XCONCEPT and Incontaminato Design: the two brands created in 2007 and 2011 by our Guys.
We met them some days ago and that’s what they told us.
Hello Giacomo, Gabriele and Lilit! You’re three different person with a common goal. Please, could you tell to our readers something more about you?
We are all from Tuscany, where Lilit and Giacomo live, and where we meet Gabriele every time he comes back from Bangkok.
Giacomo is our business keystone. Giacomo launched the first XCONCEPT store in Italy, based our headquarters in Florence, started the brand Italian and international distribution, image creation and brand development, making the brand recognizable in the industry and distributed in over 50 stores within the European, Asian and Middle East markets within the years. He is now the business director of XCONCEPT distribution, nabohu.com founder, Incontaminato label creative director and founder. Giacomo partnered also with Italian and international fashion showrooms to launch niche avant-garde brands.
Gabriele was born in Tuscany, has a long experience in fashion: directed branches of luxury powerhouses in Italy and Greece, like Prada and Giorgio Armani and traveled around the world. He decided to live between Bangkok, Bali and Pattaya, where he found his fashion inspiration, and where he produces, designs XCONCEPT and manages the three Asian flagship stores in strategic positions for Asian market.
Lilit was born in Tuscany. She has an international advertising experience – she graduated in branding in Milan and worked for top global advertising networks in Paris, Milan, New York, and currently teaches Fashion Communication at Polimoda Fashion Institute, Florence. Partner of our fashion company since 2012. Lilit’s creative sensitivity for imagery and brand communications was a new potential energy to roll out the series of new projects: since she met Giacomo, the duo launched Incontaminato Label and nabohu.com.
Image from INCONTAMINATO at Nabohu.com
How is it working together in synergy? Is it easy or hard?
As we are together since a quite long time, we found our way of working. Sometimes it’s hard as we have all a dominant personality, that’s also why each one has a different role and tasks. The goal is “be crazy when you are operating within your area, and be diplomatic when it’s a common cause!”
Which Social do you use mostly?
Instagram. Men here are the most social ones, while Lilit – she is somehow anti-social.
Image from XCONCEPT at Nabohu.com
Come to us! What is “fashion” today?
Fashion today is very, very complicated. Everywhere and nowhere. Lost in its meaning. It started as a matter of exclusivity and was considered unattainable for a long time. In recent times, we assisted to a democratization of fashion, and one of the trendiest words in these days is “inclusivity”. While all people can access fashion – most of them are not into it, speaking in terms of culture and sensitivity. That’s why we believe in a sort of “new concept of luxury”, where fashion plays a role: it’s not a matter of price and heritage. It’s all about the ability to discover and to have the courage of wearing something meaningful, to create an authentic, out of stream individual identity: in our streaming-reality, we believe to be all unique, but from our perspective, people out there, without any fashion guide, are going to look more and more similar – we do this “game” many times, we sit on a bench in the center of a city, and look at the people walking: they look very similar and in many cases it’s due to the no-filtering approach – I see it (repeated on many channels) – I adopt it but I don’t understand it.
At the same time we are going towards hyper niches around similar interests, and we think this is a positive trend for the future of fashion, hopefully we shall see a come back of artisanal and niche approaches. How? When? We don’t really know.
And how would you define its link with the web and the web-market?
If we have to be sincere, even if the internet is not new, and it’s not new the fact that fashion brands have been slowly adopting it to communicate, the internet is at the moment hardly offering – except few cases – an approach that is able to communicate the complexity of the fashion message. This is why: it’s very technical (tech-people are not always aware of what fashion is exactly) – it is crowded and expensive (to be seen, to be found online demands high budgets and experienced teams of professionals) – it’s flat and hyper-authentic (instead of exclusive and unattainable, in terms of relationship user-brand). So, on one side, large fashion businesses – brands or retailers – have the power, the budgets and the capabilities to create online fashion experiences that translate their identity at best, however only in a few cases they are able to communicate in a way which is understandable for younger generations and overall for the new connected consumer. On the other, young fashion brands, digital-born and digital-savvy, are definitely creating a new language for fashion and this language is super-connected: however all emerging and young digital brands have to overtake the relevant obstacle of how to be founded by clients and interested people, and vice versa the people struggle to find new proposals in this wide digital far west: only a short-list of very expensive techniques to be founded online are now available.
Image from INCONTAMINATO at Nabohu.com
I’m asking you that because in 2018 you founded nabohu.com, a digital space created to open to the new connected people their vision of fashion, their passions and beliefs. How did the idea born? Tell us something about the project.
nabohu.com is a tech and digital as well as a human space, proposed as Giacomo’s and Lilit’s closet. The platform offers inspiration and perspective on fashion independent trends, a selection of total look genderless brands, Incontaminato and XCONCEPT, essentially an avant-garde fashion style a series of total black outfits and an out of stream kind of fashion. nabohu.com aims also to promote artistic collaborations with emerging labels in various fields (art, vintage and more). The approach to this business is to maintain the sensitivity of a small family business, while deserving clients with an international approach to client services, no delays, flexibility, cocooning. And the opportunity of a human connection -and a style guide – with those who wish to be in touch with us.
nabohu.com is the acronym of Natural Born Humans. Why this name?
Natural Born Killers is a movie we love. It’s quite cynical, and we are not totally like that, however, we liked the fact that in the movie the protagonists feel like they cannot be but killers. So, coming back to our times, characterized by a super-connected society, and dramatic changes happening in relationship within humans, values, cultures, we can consider that we have in common only one trait: to be human.
Who is your typical visitor?
Avant-garde lovers, trendsetters, black-color lovers, curious and open-minded people, in search of something new, as they are not afraid to look for something they are not aware of and to try different things. People loved the idea they can connect with us – because we are really there! -, chat and receive suggestions, comments, experiences and ideas or just connect and talk about fashion and culture.
Image from XCONCEPT at Nabohu.com
The portal is also the “container” of the two independent labels that represent the cornerstone of your network: XCONCEPT and Incontaminato Design. How do container and contents interact with each other?
Before starting this project we were convinced that it would have been a good strategy to create a mono-brand store, maybe one per each label, that’s how every brand does. Or to create a store with more brands inside, as a normal multi-label boutique. But then, we realized that we did not want to follow the “usual strategy” because we had this idea, and the idea was that all that you see on our platform, from collections, the two brands, the style and styling proposals, the inspirations and the new collaborations we are launching with artists or other passionated fashionistas, is about our life, our vision of fashion, we call it our “closet”. That’s how we conceived it. And we thought: we are here to the people who can understand and like us, that’s it!
XCONCEPT is your main brand. Founded in Tuscany in 2007 by Gabriele Bensì, it indisputably has an avant-garde touch. Tell us something about.
XCONCEPT is our main brand. Founder and designer Gabriele Bensi were inspired to create XCONCEPT from his many travels, especially in Bali, equatorial island, capable of enhancing the development of a strong creative impulse. In Bali for the first time Gabriele conceived “the x concept”, an idea of life and style that will be the reason to all the future collections. Fusion of Asian contemporary style and european urban fashion, the distribution in Russia, Sweden, Thailand, China, Italy, United Kingdom, Japan, Spain, United Arab Emirates, Greece, Cyprus, in niche high end avant-garde store, its presence in top independent showrooms during Fashion Weeks in Milano and Paris, made XCONCEPT a recognized niche avant-garde brand with a sharp style.
Three adjectives to define its style.
Avant-Garde, Dark-Glam, Asian inspired.
Incontaminato Design is a new-generation brand founded in Tuscany by Giacomo Cerbai and Lilit Boninsegni. The focus is on streetwear and contemporary fashion. Tell us something about too.
The high street and avant-garde brand the duo curates is designed and manufactured in Tuscany through a trusted network of suppliers. Incontaminato label is a 100% Italian made label, every single garment is inspired by a social theme and the label goal is to play with the contradictions of our society through prints, appliqués, and social messages. It’s a stream of consciousness, a cause for- a world we cannot save.
Three adjectives to define its style.
Vintage-inspired, cultural references, dark, oversize silhouettes.
Image from INCONTAMINATO at Nabohu.com
With more than ten years of experience, we can consider you as veterans of the sector (with good reason!). Having said that, your brand is still young and growing. What are the advantages and what are the disadvantages for an “emerging”?
The fact is that we decided to live our lives in a sustainable way. So on one side, we proceeded with small investments and no external help, as to be “successful” as a life goal was not our main goal in life. We just wanted to bring to life our passions and to do that in an understated way. On the other hand, sometimes it’s – very – hard to be in an emerging niche, as you are always at risk, we saw many niche companies like ours rising and falling in a few years, and today the industry (in our sector mainly) is in a serious trouble. So it’s not that easy to resist, however, we believe that personality, determination, courage, helped us to succeed until now. We believe there’s always someone out there looking for something different and is willing to be part of our small family, that’s why we are here.
Future projects?
Well, we have one more future project, but it’s a secret 🙂
As always, our last question… According to you, what is really FUCKING YOUNG! today?
It’s a community, a media platform, a new fresh voice. It’s the new face of how fashion media should look like. FY! has a sharp point of view, a connected and natural way of being, and it’s one of those places where fashion people and young generations will be able to connect and find their space, interests, culture and fashion guide. It is also proposing a fashion style which defines a new kind of man, and a very interesting one, that we needed to see. We love FY!
Discover more at www.nabohu.com
