A young guy, easy and spontaneous with a lot to tell. From his experience in music, sports, and shop, he comes to fashion with a fresh and personal point of view who brought him to be considered a landmark with his style. Meet Federico Schwartz.

What is fashion for you?

Today, I think fashion is at the same time a coherent and incoherent environment, a set of constructive and destructive stuff. Settled by people who make “fashion” and others who make a “counter-fashion”, in other words, that go against a correct evolution and a certain mechanism just for personal purposes. Fashion is something that comes from the past and, therefore, should be rich in culture and history, not necessarily linked to universities or courses. Fashion today has a double face.

Instead, what’s for you the meaning for “trend”?

It is something that makes mechanisms within the fashion system start. I can compare it to a viral video, which derives from a mechanism linked to marketing. It’s something that has been studied precisely and programmed before being presented. It comes from marketing research, addressed to an audience that will appreciate it for sure. It’s something that works, always. It’s not a straight line, but a wave full of parables, high and low points; temporary, ephemeral. It’s not what’s “nice,” but what works.

 

What has been the goal making you proudest of so far?

Being acknowledged by some of the great Brands has certainly been a source of personal satisfaction to me, but what I would call my greatest goal is my giving the opportunity to some persons I believe in and to whom I hold to grow with me and to get a job, thus contributing to their serenity, from which my own comes. I am firmly in the belief that fame and money-seeking are destructive to the soul, but humility and refusal of bullying are the basis of success. However, at the same time, I must point out that what is done for work must be recognized as such and then monetized, otherwise talent or potential is exploited. Working has to be rewarded, even to make the most of it, but without going down for money.

How would you define your style? And what about your favorite brand?

My style comes from the streetwear that I personally try to turn into a mix, something eclectic, that spans and is made up of various aesthetic currents. A kind of chaos with a precise direction.

The brand I enjoy most today is Prada; not as a brand but rather as a world, as a conception, starting from the constant bond with the world of contemporary art and culture. Today, the designer who is a source of inspiration for me is Gianni Versace, both aesthetically and personally. Once I read that when he was alive, Gianni sent Mike Tyson the invitation to any show, to make him understand that he was not alone, forgotten.

A positive and a negative aspect of your job?

Negative are the compromises to which this world too often wants you to get down, the illusion of those who want to make you believe to be interested in your point of view when the only real interest is their gain in terms of visibility and money of course; the non-existence of human thickness. One positive aspect is that I can do what I love, I can express myself freely.

Who are you today and who would you wish to be tomorrow?

Today I am a serene person since I am increasingly aware of who I am. I’m coming down to know myself and feel free to be myself. I hope that tomorrow that I will have kept myself a true person, not crammed and not a victim of compromises and corruption, with the constant desire to grow. I hope I will never have the feeling of being accomplished.

According to you, what is FUCKING YOUNG! today?

For me, it is to have every day the desire to be fucking young. In other words, to have the carefree, the curiosity, the mental freedom, the enthusiasm that only young people, as a little rebel, have and that leads us to do what we really love, with indomitable passion and impetus, that translate into true dedication.

Photographers: Alex Cacciabue & Andrea Citro
Stylist: Virna Facchinetti
MUAH: Francesco D’Agostino
Fashion Assistants: Pasquale Cangemi
Brands: Christian Petrini, Supreme, Nike, Les Hommes, Fausto Puglisi, Comme des Garçons & Twelvepieces