Trés Bien's Francesco Pini Lets Us In On His World of Fashion Design

How did you get the job at Trés Bien?

The day I quit Polar, I went to the Trés Bien HQ in Malmö, just to hang out since we knew each other from working together on the Polar x Trés Bien collaboration. I was trying to be in a creative environment within the same typology as Polar. They asked me right away if I wanted to design some striped tees/jersey and draw some graphics for their “Souvenir” line. I obviously took the chance and started freelancing for them.

After just 2 months they asked me to become a designer there full time for their in house line and do some graphics for the Souvenir line so I accepted. I honestly liked that freelance period. I got to work in Barcelona for Sour skateboards a bit and I could focus and put more work in Quartersnacks and start a bit with Alltimers and some more brands. But, after all, Tres Bien was too nice of an opportunity to snob.

What does your role at Tres Bien entail?

Clothing and graphic design, plus all the production that comes with it. From sourcing and ordering fabrics, woven labels, etc, to getting the product finished and delivered to our headquarters.

With the pandemic, what does your day to day routine look like?

Sweden has been a bit of a question mark to the eyes of the world regarding the pandemic issue. I would say the main tangible change here is that we can’t travel to nearby Denmark (Copenhagen) as we usually did. So besides that detail, my daily routine didn’t really change much. I wake up, go to the Tres Bien HQ or work from home, depending on what the task is that week. When I’m done working, I go play some basketball or skate a bit, then work a bit more on my other projects. After that I’m ready to chill a bit with my girl and go sleep so I can recharge and do it all over again. Looking back at it, I actually used the down time this whole situation created to focus and do more work that I’m hyped on.

I know you're really close with Kosta, the founder of Quartersnacks. How did you guys meet?

We met way back In 2008 when I used to travel a bunch to New York since my ex was from Jersey. One of the OG QS guys, Isak, was studying a semester in Florence and when he moved back to NY I started visiting him often. He introduced me to Kosta and all the QS boys. 

Traveling with him is perfect, we’re really similar under many aspects. We like to see new things whether it’s museums or street markets. We’re always up for whatever sounds nice: a spritz, an aperitivo and some NBA finals illicit stream.

But that goes for the rest of the people that usually join us on these trips. We’re all kinda the same. As long as we can have chill times, eat and drink well, everyone is in. The skating is very casual. I don’t think we’ve ever picked a destination for its spots. We just go to a city, cruise around and skate what we find.

Did designing clothing for Quartersnacks just come naturally from being friends with Kosta?

Yeah, that definitely happened due to our friendship. I think the first thing I did for him was the Spritz mock up graphic. And that came basically from drinking many spritzes in Copenhagen and noticing that the logo was actually good to mess around with. Same with many other designs. We’d find a vintage t-shirt at a market and go “this is perfect, let’s just change this to QS!”. But as I did more stuff for him, he started asking me to do graphics from scratch, from ideas I wasn’t part of. He’d just start by explaining to me what vibe he’d like and then bouncing designs back and forth until we have the final one.

How did the Trés Bien X Quartersnacks collab come about?

When I started at Tres Bien, I told Kosta that it could be funny if we did a collaboration and he thought the same. I pitched it to my boss and he was also into the idea since I work for both companies. It made sense. 

The Trés Bien in house line we make is rather high end, with production in Europe and fine Italian fabrics and trimmings, so in the start we thought of releasing a capsule with cut and sew pieces that would land a bit out of the skate market price range, but in the end somehow, we ended up doing only the printables. 

Those graphics were pretty nice to do, since I was given a blank canvas from both sides. I thought that the QuarTrèsnacks was a fun wordplay for one graphic. The other one with the Alps is completely random, like I’ve done before for the QS line: connecting the brand with places that have nothing to do with it.

What about the Sneeze Mag X Tres Bien collab?

That connection was born from a coworker at Trés Bien that has been friends with the Sneeze people for quite some time. The creation of the capsule was built quite the same way as the QS one, so we knew we wanted printables and some cut and sew garments based on a funky twist to sporty outerwear.

I sourced a vintage anorak during the process and it was a very good fit with some nice details, so we decided to work on that design and turn it into a leather jacket, with a bucket hat to match. So you end up with a rain jacket that you can’t really use in the rain (laughs).

The fleece vest was mostly based on a fuzzy fleece fabric we sourced and wanted to use combining it with my love for fishing/technical vests. One of the rugbys was inspired from an offset stripe pattern painting I’ve seen during a visit at the local museum. The rest is based on vintage references combined with fabric sourcing. It was quite fun to make and I’m happy that the guys at Sneeze dealt with the graphic design part of the collection. I think it is nice to have both sides working on a collaboration rather than just one company borrowing the logo.

What brands do you think are doing things right these days?

I personally really like Aime Leon Dore. They have really good designs based on really smart references, the garments are really high quality and the collaborations are very well picked. Plus the image they’ve built around the brand is really cool to me.

I also think Palace is on an insane streak right now. We can discuss the fact that they are making too many collaborations or that most of the clothing is a bit “young” or hype. But still, the way they approach the presentation of their main line or the different capsules is absolutely flawless.

I recently started working a bit with you for Grand Collection. I really like the direction you’re taking the brand, plus the drive and effort you’ve been putting into it. There aren’t many casual decisions taken, everything is well thought after and executed.

I think that the guys at Dancer are also doing really nice things with their product in terms of quality and design and also how they market it.

For a less streetwear example, I really like Auralee and Bode. They both work with extremely high end fabrics or with an extreme research process, the fits are amazing and the final product is beautiful. It’s stuff I can’t afford and usually wouldn’t wear, but I really admire it. Other than these there are many other brands I got love for so it's kind of hard to list them all.

Tell us about your vintage business? 

It's called Noon Archive and so far is an Instagram shop (@Noon_archive) and a Depop page. But it’s slowly growing, as we are working on a webstore and planning a second pop up store.

The idea started from my love for vintage clothing, whether in sportswear or high end brands, and how I’ve always loved going to street markets and thrift stores knowing that in any table or rack there could be a gem hidden.

Also, I’ve had a vintage store before starting at Polar, where I used to source vintage between Sweden and Italy so I know how to get my hands on the product. Pretty much what was left to do was to think of a good name, start an Instagram account, take good pictures of the stock we had from one of our recent trips to Italy and build an image and concept around it. After that, just always be on the lookout for more product to add.

The name comes from the fact that working full time at Trés Bien, I have to use my hour lunch break (starting 12 o’clock) to go around Malmö researching gear at the local thrifts. That’s how the name Noon came about. It is a lot of work, especially balancing it between the full time job I have and the other graphic design gigs, but it is worth it seeing the response it is having from people.

If someone reading this wants to become a designer, what would you suggest?

I just think that if you love something you should pursue it. Put as much effort and work you can in learning and developing your skills, be humble in what you do and be nice to people and at some point you will be rewarded.