SKATE BOY: Photographer Giampaolo Sgura can add fashion creative director to his resume, having launched a youth-centric fashion brand during Milan Fashion Week. 

Named Cultura, it’s the brainchild of Sgura along with friends Mauro Porzia and Edoardo Lo Izzo and is inspired by skater culture, with basics including oversized cargo pants, elongated graphics-bearing T-shirts, hoodies and tank tops.

The three founders understand how skaters consider their garments as Linus blankets that they wear time and again until they’re beaten up. Each of the 30 garments in the gathering is available in two iterations — pristine and distressed, to mimic a worn-in effect. 

Vintage prints decking orange T-shirts and grey hoodies were AI-generated by inputting the phrase “Nineteen Seventies skateboarders in California.” The result includes credible vintage pictures of boys in, say, Venice Beach’s skate parks, their face and body parts often distorted. 

Cultura has dropped a see-now-buy-now capsule collection for Antonia however it is officially hitting retail for spring 2024. Entirely made in Italy, the brand is distributed through the Milan-based Falconieri showroom.