GCDS Founder: Giuliano Calza – Branding Codes, Dreaming Big, Discipline, & Making Fashion Fun Again

33:40The Gstaad Guy:flights and prepaid hotels booked through American Express Travel Online and a flexible spending capacity that can grow with your business, you'll have the confidence to keep building. Apply today and earn a welcome offer of$1 ,500 cash back after you spend$50 ,000 in qualifying purchases on your new card within the first six months of card membership. Terms apply. Learn more at go.amex.com. I've had the pleasure of spending time with you in different environments. I've been to your offices, I've been on trips with you, I've attended your shows, and I see that you are surrounded by people that share your values, but don't necessarily share your interests or your views.

34:17The Gstaad Guy:It seems like you surround yourself with teams and friends that absolutely have different perspectives, but all down to the same values shared. is that something you've always consciously worked on growing and developing and translating into the way you build teams for GCDS as well I think that's also my weakest point like HR or HR of life if we're not talking about work that I really have to respect you and I respect the most random things in people the most random interests and And I think that when you have to do what, like simply saying, companies are a big family. And of course, you don't have to like all of your brothers and sisters, but it's better if you can find something you respect in them.

35:17And the same for me was like in friends and people around. Like I've been very disgusted by power of people, power in control, like people in control or like big celebrities or like big stylists that I was like I don't really want to spend my time this way so to me yes the the one thing I was always like since a kid is literally just listen like this comes from my mom I think it's really like it's not most of the time it's not how you feel it's what made made you feel that way and even knowing people or knowing like getting to discover other things in your life if it doesn't resonate to you means it's not right for you and um with work i always think that when you leave the the journey we are doing together it's okay and it's your time to go but i always have a little sadness in me of like why do you want to leave?

36:24And most of the time I feel like we're living in different times, parallel universe, all of us, and there's some people that are forever and some people that are just coming by. You complete your mission and it's fine.

36:43The Gstaad Guy:Is there one thing in particular you're usually looking for or a few things in particular that you look for in people that you try to surround yourself with both at work and outside of work? I think it's the exchange of, I think I never put myself on top of people, but it's always like looking eyes in the eyes and it's the same, like I'm not better than you, you're not better than me. And when you can respect this exchange, it's the best thing can happen in your life. Also because I think I really want to see life as a happy day and not as a happy journey. I think you have to live moment by moment saying, oh, this is fab.

37:26And if you don't do it with people that are on the same journey, why are you sharing it with them? Of course, some may say it's very easy to say this way, but in my position of being an entrepreneur before a designer because I also have a company, and I also have the privilege to choose the people I work with, is something that I can allow myself, I can indulge myself in. So for me, it's the exchange of like the different. Like I think when I moved the first time to China, what really had me involved romantically with China was the idea that it was opening so many new doors in me culturally, And emotionally, I said this is something that nobody, no money, no gain can get you that idea of opening up part of yourself, part of your feeling, like as a human.

38:31And at the end of the day, collecting things, which I love, on the long run doesn't give you anything. Meanwhile, collecting exchanges like views. That's why I like sometimes people are like so politically incorrect or like they tell the worst thing to my ears. And but still, and this is coming from my dad, like we would analyze things from different points of view. So you get to understand that nobody is living with your same point of view and you have to open your point of view on the others. Otherwise, it's just one single show, man, like one single show, one man show. And that's what I really enjoy the least.

39:19The Gstaad Guy:How important to that discovery was you leaving Naples and being in China and being in that new environment? I mean, I turned gay in China. I had girlfriends. I had like a club of friends that was respecting the projection I had of myself for myself. And when I arrived to the college first day, nobody knows you. Nobody knows your past. You're brand new. It's a new passport. And everyone at first, everyone was treating me like I was gay. I didn't even knew myself. But everyone had this clear vision, completely new, free from. And it gave me such a point of view of saying, oh, maybe I can experience this too.

40:09Oh, maybe that's such, ironically, is such a nice picture of myself from the outside, which never anyone had the idea of telling me. Like leaving Napoli was like leaving the nest. I mean I was traveling a lot even before I went to study in Brighton I went to New York millions of times because part of my family was there but that brand new also like the time zone was helping me to just have no connection like you cut all the connection like when people are waking up you're going to bed so usually your dinner it's the breakfast for people in here And I felt like I arrived, I didn't like books. Literally, I was so visual all my life.

41:02And I had these two best friends. And they were like, read this book. Watch this Bernardo Bertolucci and then read this book. That made me, like, it put me on fire. I was like, oh my gosh, I love literature. I was literally in Anna Karenina. and I was literally reading everything coming my way because it was just, I think that's where I discovered the idea of myself not creating just from visual and music, that those were my tools, learning how to write my own pictures from books. That was even better. It was giving me so many details that I was upgrading with even more details And that discovery was for me so incredible and so magnifying on life.

41:52I was like, imagine how many other things I don't know about. Would you prescribe that feeling on anyone and everyone you care for in your life?

42:03The Gstaad Guy:The feeling of being in a new environment where you feel alien to learn more about yourself? You know, my very first job, my parents would work like crazy. My mom would work in an hospital in the morning and in the afternoon in a studio with different doctors. My very first job was the receptionist at the door. I was scheduling appointments, opening the door, getting all these people coming in my life and seeing them for the first time. And the very first job was exactly this experience of saying, I knew I was a receptionist or a pizza delivery, but throwing yourself through experience in different words gives you the best knowledge about yourself.

42:52It's true. I think that was when it clicked for me to understand people. Yes, my mom would be a psychologist, so she would ask me how I feel and how do I get to this and how do I navigate my feelings. But that very first job, and I was, I think, 13 or 14, was the first time I was like, it's so nice to get to know people. So I would suggest everyone to throw themselves, at least do it once. so even when I had no money in China like at some point I was like living on a 300 euro loan from my parents I was like maybe I should drop the 300 euro and I should go to the cafeteria or working somewhere else that was so refreshing like you can always have a brand new start there's no need for yourself to put yourself in a box and that's why I encourage people to be themselves Like even like, I think this idea, and that's why we are the generation of people doing differently.

43:56It's like, I grew up in a Catholic school. So I respect so much rules and I have so much respect for like discipline. Like to me, even praying is a discipline, whatever is the prayer. but learning how to use the discipline at your own power like as your as your own personal tool is the most important thing i agree i think discipline is is really really

44:29The Gstaad Guy:an amazing thing when channeled in categories that really mean a lot to you but even for creativity thinking as creativity without discipline is just chaos yeah being able to reduce your your world into a little coherent world is the most powerful tool it's like painting on a canvas versus a wall yeah it's a very different thing so for the listeners today who share that desire for growth that you felt right it's it's the knowing you want to grow in a direction but not sure which direction or feeling like the environment that you're in may be trapping that growth do you think an environment change

45:25The Gstaad Guy:physically is the wisest first step or are there any other things that went in your mind that maybe people could do without necessarily doing that for me first you have to accept the idea you can do it as stupid as it is so people try at first to create so many limits for themselves oh i have no money like this is an exercise i suggest to everyone because sometimes i had like i i had the pleasure to work with kids in university and they would come to me and say how do i become a stylist and I said I have no resources to buy clothes or to do I said first of all in the world of today you can get to everything you want and you can become a specialist but get a white t-shirt everyone has a white t-shirt and tell me how many times you can style it in a different way put it upside down put it as a pants put it as that's the first tool for me it can open so many scenarios, use it as a bandana, use it as a dress.

46:30And this is exactly what you have to do with your project. Not necessarily you have to move to China or Korea to become your best self, but you can do the bare minimum and understand if you really want to go for that change. Because sometimes they, like going back to the styling thing, I'm like, you need to have passion for but to understand if you have the passion like the sentimental feeling inside of you of doing this for the rest of your life bring me back 3000 exercise of the same YT and then at that point you can risk it all and that for me was very I do this for anything I read once, I don't know where that you don't have to do the same path to work every day.

47:24And I do the same. Even if I have to cook pasta al pomodoro, I'll do it in a million different ways. I try to do it in a million different ways. I put cannella or I put cinnamon or I do this or then I do instead of basil, I do another way. I do it. And you can find amazing, you're like amazing ways that are going to be your own to cook the best, the most suited for you pasta pomodoro that you will ever find.

47:50The Gstaad Guy:putting labels on things really helps me understand them better so my label of this act is basically being incredibly resourceful like milking every resource you have access to milking every ingredient and just maximize as much as you can I always say like you want to be famous you have a phone you want to be creative you have a pen you want to like and the same was for me like but you need to have a direction that you have to understand if it's literally deep down in your belly is the one you want to go for because then you have to give all your life and no money no gain will make you feel like oh this was the best idea for me because you're gonna find yourself maybe even succeeding in things but then not being able to milk it anymore and say i'm like i'm just bored of this like i need to change and then changing and changing and changing but the changing is good when you achieve it's not good if you just keep on it's like we have to go from this place to my house and we keep changing street yeah but are you gonna get rich are you gonna get home exactly so speaking of directions you had that success with the logos i know your business is not logos you're making lots of different silhouettes, lots of different categories and servicing lots of different customers.

49:17The Gstaad Guy:When did you define that direction ultimately and what was the process of defining it for you? So it was a really lot of like go and fail. Not so many actually. Like there's many things that people didn't believe in. So I was not believing in it enough.

49:43But I always say the example of the Marceau shoes. I was obsessed with Dracula. I read the book. I watched all the movies. I read the book again six times in a month.

49:52The Gstaad Guy:Just to add a bit of context to the listeners, that is your high-heeled shoe with a mouth on the back. Exactly, with the fang on the back. Yeah. And I designed these shoes. I literally sketched it like crazy. I did a triangle with like teeth. And I was like, this is the shoe. I went to my team and I was like, let's go. everyone was like why nobody wants it nobody's gonna be willing to spend money for this i was like what people would laugh at me i believed so much in it but because i was believing so much to the idea that i to my own idea i was so delusional to that that in the end it was the most successful shoes I ever designed the most copied the most stolen and I think it's always about trying but also how much do you believe in it and of course you have to like now it's 10 years so I uh when we arrived downstairs Matilda was with me said oh we just had this meeting I think you created an insane bestseller.

51:01We, everyone was obsessed about it. And I'm like, I kind of knew, but just because I kind of believed in it. I really believed that there was a smart idea. There was a toy for adults, which is what I like to create. And I did the concept behind it, basing it on me using it every day for the rest of my life. I was like, do I believe myself to do this for the rest of my life? Which is really weird being obsessive and like, oh, let's go around. So that's the strength I think people should embrace. Because it's literally once again, we go back to the idea of like praying. It's not that the act of praying is going to get you the gifts or get you.

51:53but the you believing it so much and you giving power to that idea then it's going to make it so strong inside of you that in the end you're going to get it

52:05The Gstaad Guy:so you're playing this really fun game in the space of fashion and I think playful fashion does exist as a category but I think it's likely often a

52:24The Gstaad Guy:positioning to be playful, right? But rarely also the DNA of the brand behind the scenes. I think you've seen a lot of what the fashion world looks like, particularly in Milan. How is what you've built different to that? And can you paint a picture for the audience of what the business of fashion and being a founder in fashion traditionally looks like? so sometimes my world is very misunderstood because it's like pop music it's for the stupid it's too simple it's too shallow but i think if it doesn't become a caricature it's very with it's very intelligent and that's what i like like a good joke is when there's a double meaning to it.

53:20So I prefer to put myself into a position of like grounded intelligence that then it can evolve into a fun product. I really don't like, but because I've never used things that are silly. Like I love being silly, but silly with a grounded intelligence. Like there has to be a background and fashion is the most unserious business and is the most is based on appearance that is the less least deep thing but still everyone loves to make it looks serious serious and scientific and like super meaningful which it can be but there's many ways of being like I think the one that designers because I of course I appreciate the work of a good designer of like a sharp tuxedo or a sharp dress it's when it comes from knowledge so the meaning has to be in the knowledge of the item itself it doesn't have to be the explanation behind the idea of what are we creating and I think fashion lost a bit of this

54:38of this fun energy the sparkle of like like today you can reproduce anything so sadly you can do any bag you can do any shoe, you can do any coat and the luxury of itself is the storytelling like sometimes I get really this is a back conversation to start but I will start it anyway people say oh but they're not paying how much they're selling it for and I'm like yeah but luxury is the biggest margin fraud that has ever been done like how can you think that a back can cost 30 ,000 euros it's just about the experience, the storytelling the codes, the relevancy that this brand has It's like saying, oh, but Basquiat is not like to be sold for millions.

55:35But it's about the idea. It's about him making it and spending time on it, choosing the colors, having one, only one of them. And the same is about, like, generally about the fashion industry. So for me, luxury is also something that you want to be long. It's not necessarily something you want to consume because you don't need anything. you can live a happy life with like an infradito like just a simple pair of shoes like the best times are always in a swimsuit I say so you really don't need but it's maybe everything that we built for beauty that is meant to be the industry and if we take that out it's like seeing a Pollock is just dots a lot of dots on a wall yeah sure but seeing the back story of it it can be like that like I re-expanded this back it can be just that but this is also like my idea of design this is my like the Morseau shoes itself is a shoe with the technology that has been used many many times but I had the idea of making a Dracula shoes then you can copy it and make it for$29 and sell it everywhere sure but maybe they want to buy it for me anyway so it's how you position yourself in life and that's generally about how you position yourself in like every narrative i think you are clearly

57:11The Gstaad Guy:a founder of this generation right it's very very modern in the way you do business in the way you grew your business in the way you innovate and also in the way you mix these worlds together with playfulness, right? Are there things in this generation, in this time we find ourselves in, that you love and would celebrate and in a Stade Guy way call fantastique and things you would maybe want to change and leave behind and throw à la poubelle? So I was just in Paris and I love a caviar caspia. Like I think a 300 euro potato is so disgusting, but at the same time it's fantastique. Okay.

57:54The Gstaad Guy:300 euro potato potato boiled with some caviar is like fantastic for me and I think that's shameful I now understand your definition and it makes a lot more sense fine and then a la poubelle there's not so many things that I want to send la poubelle because I think I'm not like that judgmental to the others like I'm la poubelle for myself like I hate paying the bills I don't know things stupid stuff Like I hate managing money. I hate like there's so many things that I have pubelle for me every day, every minute. Like I hate people stopping in front of the escalator. That's a good one. I hate. Like that literally generates me so much.

58:36Like we're going out of a bus. Why are you thinking of stopping right in front and looking left and right for 10 minutes? We are going down from an escalator with 200 people and you stop right in front. That's la pubelle like. a thousand times

58:51The Gstaad Guy:a thousand times okay there's little things that makes me go crazy crazy I like these little things it's good I like one other thing that I think la poubelle like seeing that ignorant people and like lying completely about that they're not ignorant what do you mean? like in the news sometimes you see people lying like saying things that are untrue facts that are not fact checked oh we see a lot of that yeah but nobody says anything it's like common truth they just accept them and we accept it as a sheep I'm like why we're doing this yeah what is it about this time that you think is is is unique I think although there's a lot of the the sheep who accept things I think we're at a time where people question things more than ever which I personally love when people notice more than ever and talk about things more than ever and look for information and agree and disagree over information publicly online.

59:55The Gstaad Guy:They fight. They fight, which I think is great. I think the friction leads to conversation. Do you think that exists as a part of who you are and the message you're trying to share as well through your close, that contrast and that give and take? Because I think your storytelling often really involves this crazy contrast. You're really playing on these two sides. that are so polar and then through that friction, they come together beautifully, like putting SpongeBob on a couture dress. I love to drop a little insanity. Like the last two weeks ago, I wanted just to do hate baiting. And I said, let's post a fake AI boyfriend or GCDS.

1:00:42And I knew people would have hated it. Unfollow. This is so horrible. And I was like, guys, it's just about time. Like, it's saying like, oh, let's listen to the radio, not watch TV, or I'll send you a fax. Then I love the friction out of like, I also like about, we had to do an underwear campaign. And I said, let's get our Oliphant's boy. I love, like, I respect them so much. Like, they're creators out of their own bodies. the hate that generates oh so many models out there and you're choosing like a only fence like what's your problem i can choose whatever i want then sometimes i'm already so tired by everything that happens that i'm like okay let's just shoot in a safe way so nobody says anything but it gets me so bored there's moment of like products products that i'm like why why are we shooting this bag for the 10th time like who cares so i hope i just hope for this moment of extreme tools because we have extreme tools compared to our the older generation it doesn't create a whole new generation of people that don't know how to count to three and like they don't know like i love to being able to walk in a street like in a city without using my maps i love to do things that are really bare minimum for me and i see the new generation is just like oh let me you know i think that's part of like culture general like basic and i hope these extreme tools that we have like i remember the like now that the airports came out with in translation i was like i had to study so much to understand how to buy milk when i was at college and made me so powerful and sure about myself.

1:02:44You know, I can survive and buy myself a milk. You and I. Oh yeah. And instead, like, this friction, I hope it gets for real to a moment where everyone is like willing to use this friction for something good. I'm like a bit of a Glinda. What's a Glinda? I've seen Wicked. No. So I gotta go. we cannot finish this

1:03:11The Gstaad Guy:is that a character? yeah because I'm a little like it's a character from Wicked she's a little bit stupid like a little bit blonde and the intentions are not always good in what they what she does but in the end it's for good okay I like that it's got a unique path to a good outcome yeah and for your own story yeah I like it. So if you could give one way of thinking to the audience today as a conclusion, what would it be? Speak positive about yourself. I like that. Always. Like, speak is the smallest act of self-respect that can lead you so many places. like the act of respecting and telling nice words and being polite about yourself and the others is such a weapon is such a weapon that I wish everyone could use it to celebrate themselves and the others and how does that look to celebrate oneself without the fear of feeling like you're bragging about yourself first of all you don't have to do it publicly like you can just before you wake up and look at your phone you can just say oh I'm blessed I'm in my nice bed I'm having nice food now and I'm going to have a nice day this is already grateful and I got a lot of hate not a lot of hate but I got a lot of comments because I like different type of people I like rappers I like porn stars I like artists.

1:05:02I like controversial. And instead of saying like, oh, you see the best about them. Others people have to brag about what I like and what I don't like. Like, this is pointless. It's lost, time lost. And I think you don't have to brag about yourself because honestly, there's a hundred million people that are living and having a better life than us or than me. I don't know. but still it's just respecting whatever you have like there's people that would die to have your t-shirt that you're just trashing on the suit like I started respecting and this happened back in time because when I was working sometimes I would have a shift in the restaurants where I was working and my shoe would get ruined but I was like Instead of crying for the shoes they got ruined, I was so blessed to have them in my life.

1:06:02That was the thing for me to not be sad and to get more shoes. So I don't think it's brag about us. It's just about also a way to respect the others. Because imagine if you just go around saying, oh, I don't have a Rolex. Oh my gosh, my Birkin is not pink. It's just black. That's bragging.

1:06:24The Gstaad Guy:That's hateful. That's true. One thing I forgot to ask you, I'd like to ask you. I don't know if you ever called GCDS a family business, but it's kind of a family business because you work on it with your brother, right? I think, yes, it started as a family business. Yeah, for sure. All of the business I started then were a family business in a way because of my brother. But I couldn't do it anywhere else. Like I couldn't do it anywhere else. Like I think part of my success, big part of my success is being surrounded by people that knew how to do things I don't actually know how to do it. And Jordan is one of those.

1:06:59And yeah, I think, again, every business, it's a family business because you have to go in with the best intentions. Like if there's no peace and it's always like a tantrum every day,

1:07:12The Gstaad Guy:I'd rather leave. And what's it like to work with your brother? I mean, it's like a brother relationship. like it's a lot of like i hate you leave me lower you don't understand and then it's a lot of like oh i'm so thankful and i've always feel very protected and i always feel like at the end of the day every business is a business fashion business is a business is a big business and there's always going to be times where people want to you up or they want to get more money or they want to do something working with a brother at the end of the day you know that is by your side. And that's what makes a great, generally someone great at work is like knowing that we are going in the same direction.

1:07:59That is the success, not the economical success, the success for us. Like being able to do this all together is the ultimate. Like imagine if you could get endless vacations, but just by yourself. It's a nightmare. That's true. Imagine if you can get endless vacation with the people you like.

1:08:23The Gstaad Guy:Wow. My grandfather, before he passed, said to me, he said, heaven alone is hell and hell with friends is heaven. Literally, I think that's the one thing about life. Like if happiness is shared, it's true. like I think I've always pointed to the idea of like being able to gift things to people to share things with people I live in a I'm very blessed with like a huge house or like uh things that but I always love to have people around I'm always like people are like are you sure we can come to else it's like what am i going to do by myself with the cat like so everything like generally i think for me even in a company i think it's not my success story it's like thinking of and it's also like what i always try to tell people it's not just about juliano like yes juliano is the face card is the front and is that most of the ideas come from me yes but then the the actual big machine moving is because of all of the people working at it and it's because of the the togetherness and i think when that togetherness is going to be over i have to to change because i i don't i don't know how to do things in a way that is not with closeness of heart and closeness of goals and like i had incredible people working at our that failed because they weren't enjoying the spirit and at the end they left and life is like this that's true well Giuliano thank you so much for being here on the podcast thank you so much for being my favorite showgirl well it was good to have you on and as always it's always very fun to talk to you thank you it was an incredibly nice evening you too thanks Giuliano

1:10:36Thank you.