Carol Christian Poell

Carol Christian Poell was founded by Carol Christian Poell (b. 1966) and Sergio Simone in 1994 following Poell’s graduation from the postgraduate design course at Domus Academy in Milan. Poell set up C.C.P. Srl to serve as the production and distribution company for his label. He released a small capsule collection for Autumn Winter 1994 consisting of a pair of trousers, a jacket, a shirt and a T-shirt, followed by his first full collection the following season. In 1999 he started a womenswear collection. Poell’s use of leather throughout his career has been influenced by his family’s lengthy experience in the tannery and leather industry. This has resulted in his adventurous and experimental methods of cutting and assembling his clothes, as well as a rethinking of the basic construction language. Poell’s investigation into the transformation of dead animal skin into garments has informed his choice of venues to show his collections which have included a slaughterhouse, a morgue and Milan’s Naviglio Grande canal, where models’ apparently lifeless bodies floated downstream past the invited fashion guests and the public. Poell continued to explore this fascination in his Autumn Winter 2001 video presentation, ‘Public Freedom’, by locking models inside the cages of a Milan municipal dog pound.

Sources: Grailed.com; Terry Jones and Susie Rushton, eds, Fashion Now 2: i-D Selects 160 of Its Favourite Fashion Designers from Around the World (Cologne: Taschen, 2008); New Yorker; U-Wire.