CLOSED has made clothes since 1978. The label started in Italy, moved its headquarters to Hamburg in 1990 and still has its jeans made in Italy. It stands for denim and pieces built to be worn for years. The partnership showed that attitude through people: the team behind the label, and creatives who wear it in their daily lives.
Friends of Friends and FvF Productions worked with CLOSED from 2015 to 2022. It began with two seasons of press days at the FvF Apartment and a film series for the Archive ’85 campaign. In 2018 the label celebrated 40 years with a dinner at the Friends Space, and an editorial portrait series began. It visited a painter in Antwerp, a photographer in the Uckermark and creatives in New York, Berlin, Los Angeles, Milan and Amsterdam. A new round of portraits followed in 2022. The stories ran on Friends of Friends and across CLOSED’s website, online shop, social channels and print magazine HARD COPY.
Twice a year, German Press Days bring fashion press to Berlin. For two seasons in 2015, CLOSED moved its press showroom into the FvF Apartment, the furnished flat Friends of Friends used for events, workshops and guests. Rails, mannequins and a long dining table took the place of a trade-fair booth. The AW15 collection hung in rooms that felt lived in.
For autumn/winter 2015, CLOSED looked back at its own history. The Archive ’85 collection brought back denim styles from the 1980s. Friends of Friends built the campaign content around the people who make the company. A brand film and four short portraits introduce the team, with sales staff in New York, Paris, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. A long interview with co-owner Til Nadler, at home and at the Hamburg headquarters, ran on Friends of Friends.
CLOSED jeans have been made in Italy for four decades, from the first weave to the final wash. To mark 40 years, the label hosted an Italian concept dinner at the Friends Space in Kreuzberg. 120 guests sat at long tables under gold pendant lamps. Friends of the brand at the table included Rabea Schif, Jochen Schropp, Caro Daur and Sara Nuru.
A second evening followed on 21 November 2018. A talk on the sofa first, then dinner at long candlelit tables.
The portrait series started in 2018 as Men in Closed and grew into an ongoing editorial format. Each episode places the season’s collection in the daily life, studio and neighbourhood of a creative. Friends of Friends handled concept, research and casting, the visual narrative, photography and text. Together with FvF Productions, the team developed a storytelling style and a visual identity that fit the CLOSED aesthetic.
Every portrait was adapted for CLOSED’s international website, online shop, social channels and the print magazine HARD COPY, and ran in full on Friends of Friends. In autumn 2019 the productions continued with art director Zipeng Zhu in New York and Gunifort Uwambaga of the Amsterdam bookshop and publisher MENDO.
In 2020 a Friends of Friends story looked at the sustainability programme behind CLOSED denim. A Better Blue is a reduced-impact line made with the Italian mill Candiani, which supplies most of the label’s denim. It began with two fabrics and grew to two thirds of the denim range. Denim developer Uwe Kippschnieder and head of production Nina Schlüter explained how it is made.
In 2022 the partnership returned to portraits. A new series, built on the long friendship between the two companies, profiled creative tastemakers in Los Angeles and Berlin. It visited creative director Nu Goteh, co-founder of Room for Magic and its publication Deem, at his Spanish-style 1920s home in South Los Angeles. It met Keegan Fong, who left marketing to open the noodle restaurant Woon. In Berlin it spent time with Johann König, founder of KÖNIG GALERIE.
Fashion, embedded in the everyday.
A partnership with CLOSED, produced by Friends of Friends and FvF Productions from 2015 to 2022. Press days, campaign films, a 40th-anniversary dinner and an editorial portrait series that ran for years.
Portraits of creatives in seven cities, published on Friends of Friends and across CLOSED’s website, online shop, social channels and HARD COPY magazine.