AGL is a premium footwear brand, born in 1958 in the Marche region, the beating heart of footwear production, thanks to the entrepreneurship and vision of Piero Giusti, the company’s founder. AGL’s creations went on to success in Northern Europe and the United States with Piero’s son Attilio, who created the glove-like soft fit, a distinctive feature of some categories of the collections designed and made entirely in Italy. The brand’s reputation and international distribution have since developed further thanks to the leadership of the Giusti sisters, Sara, Vera and Marianna, the third generation to head the company. AGL collections are born from a balance between tradition and progress, the result of innovative research combined with the expertise of craftsmanship and the quality of Made in Italy. The Giusti sisters propose a wide range of daywear, also perfect for evening wear, thus making AGL footwear easy to wear, but at the same time cool and sophisticated, by women for women.
AGL Sisters
What are the biggest challenges you have met in your career?
The greatest efforts were made by us sisters and our team with the aim of opening new markets and expanding our community to make it increasingly global. Efforts that are always rewarded also with a personal growth because opening up to new cultures means learning, understanding and improving ourselves.
How would you describe your FW 2023/24 collection?
The Fall Winter 2023/2024 Collection was inspired by the overwhelming and existential works of Expressionist painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. It is indeed emotion, like the intense one of the Expressionists’ total questioning of modern life, that dictated the creation in the collection of pieces that are poetic and conceptual, but at the same time with a light and irreverent approach, following the path from darkness to light. If the adoption of intense colors and primitivist elements served Kirchner to externalize the drama of the images, the transposition here in the collection is the mocking and elegantly gothic atmosphere, cool and fascinating. An outsider’s uniqueness that becomes a style icon.
Black is the star color of the season, along with decisive volumes and angular, geometrically absurd heels. Yet, disruptive, eye catching greens and oranges also find their place in this collection, with the light reflections created by patent leather. Energetic brushstrokes of color dress up round shapes of maxi volume and spool heels, extra thin blade heels paired with tapered toes, geometric toes with Cuban heels, and heeled and platform bottoms with a ton sur ton rubberized finish. Brushstrokes that awaken interest, communicating emotions and the desire to exhibit one’s individuality and personality.
AGL Kristen McMenamy capsule FW
What is the message you want to send, and what kind of man is referring to?
Fashion is not made of trends but of personality, therefore each additional item added to our wardrobe must have a logical meaning: giving charm and enhancing the essence of the woman who wears it.
What is your main source of inspiration?
The contemporary, cheerful and multitasking woman has always been our source of inspiration, since our goal is to design and produce comfortable shoes, perfect for the super busy life of us women. Our muses are all the smart, conscious and pragmatic women, who have the courage to make their decisions autonomously.
What about your next project?
In the middle of September 2023 we present to final consumers the AGL x Kristen McMenamy Capsule Collection under the eyes of Katie Grand. The capsule arose from the desire to engage with diverse experimental, innovative, creative minds, the desire to improvise, the urge to get down and do, and experiment with new things. An urge that we have always had. We have always felt at ease workingin a group, from the most intimate, when just the 3 of us sisters get together for drawing sessions, to the more open, involving the style office team at the company, the hemmers or seamstresses, or the girls who do the more intricate details. Wall to wall women. Each of them brings something special to the table to embellish the creative process – they devise, they solve, they help create beauty in a multitude of insights, experimentations and cut-outs. This time we spread our wings and the buzz on the grapevine took us to London, one of our favourite cities, and our all-women creative team was joined by 2 brilliant women, Katie Grand and Kristen McMenamy. The creative sessions turned into explosive exercises because of Kristen’s talents. Her coolness, energy, love of shoes and passion for detail encouraged us to think outside the box by enticing us into a wonderland, which was a little dark and a little innocent. Nothing would have been possible without Katie Grand, whose sophisticated culture and intellect brought together disparate minds to produce something exceptionally contemporary – the design of a feminine avant-garde partnership that was bursting with personality. The AGL Kristen x McMenamy Capsule Collection springs from an obsession with shoes as the basic building block in the creation of an outfit, which then takes center stage in the outfit itself. It captures the freedom to be yourself any time, the culture of clutter, inconsistency and the many faces of being a woman.
Starting from 2 iconic AGL designs, 8 limited edition styles were created: pumps with flower-shaped accessories, chain decorations, or with a Texan twist, ankle boots with chains, Texans on kitten heels, ankle boots and boots on solid ultralight high wedges. In addition to using simple yet strong colors such as black and optical white, the representative color of this collection is the mysterious and fantastic purple, bold and intense. Then touches of gold and silver to give reflections of light.The collection, designed in London, was produced in AGL’s laboratories and is completely Made in Italy, with only high quality Italian materials. It will be available in exclusive at Selfridges in London, Galerie LaFayette in Paris, Unger in Hamburg, Antonia in Milan and in agl.com.
AGL Kristen McMenamy capsule FW
Outside of design, what are you currently interested in and how is it influencing your design work?
Art is the highest form of human expression and one cannot be insensitive to it: it is drama, reassurance, illumination. It calms the senses and ignites the soul.