MILAN — Follow a trail of black spiders drawn on the pavement of Via Bigli in central Milan and you will find a new gem — the first Oxblood boutique in the world, unveiled during design week.
The store carries precious jewels, stunning necklaces made of natural Australian or Japanese pearls and tiny spiders engraved by hand, their closures in burnished gold and black diamonds.
The spider is Oxblood’s main symbol and the word Oxblood fuses oxidized and blood, “fixing memories and self-expression in time, so that they become permanent,” said Giulia Luchi, who founded the brand with Brian Woo, known as Dr. Woo, the popular L.A.-based tattooist, who has garnered a loyal following ranging from Miley Cyrus to Justin Bieber with his artistic designs that blend graphic and organic details.
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During an exclusive interview, it is obvious Oxblood is a dream project for Luchi and Woo and their passion is palpable. While hailing from seemingly different backgrounds, their shared attitude toward fashion and luxury is undoubtable.
Born and raised in Florence, Luchi graduated with a degree in textile design. Jewelry has long been a business and a passion in her family as her mother created Florentine-style jewelry for decades. Luchi’s background in fashion includes working first with Ermanno Scervino, described as her mentor, then Alberta Ferretti and finally with Virgil Abloh from the day the late designer founded Off-White.
Dr. Woo continues to own and operate a world-leading tattoo shop — Hideaway Wrkshp — in Hollywood. This is not his first foray into fashion, as he cited for example a collaboration with Sacai creative director Chitose Abe, who commissioned Woo to refresh Jean Paul Gaultier’s ’90s-era tattoo shirts when she was tapped by the French house to helm its fall 2021 couture collection.
“Throughout the course of my career, a big part of my brand and what I do is dancing outside the lines of what people know me as a tattoo artist, and kind of breaking the barrier and being able to shift platforms and get out of the traditional boxes, the categories people want to put you in,” Woo said, sitting in the store on sofas placed on a carpeting of Japanese algae, surrounded by a vintage TV set, LPs and other memorabilia.
A few steps away, a tattooist works away in a room designed to reproduce Woo’s studio. In the warm and inviting store, which covers more than 3,000 square feet that unfold in different rooms, oak wood is a key element at the entrance, reminiscent of the omakase dining table in a sushi restaurant, Luchi pointed out.
Oxblood is backed by Golden Goose chief executive officer Silvio Campara’s personal holding, Capafin Srl, and Woo touted Luchi and Campara’s vision.
“I’ve worked alongside wonderful designers and done other collaborations, they were great, but with Giulia and Silvio it was as if they reached into my closet, my mind and filled in all my insecurities about designing product and what a brand I would design would look like, because no one ever really knows you,” he enthused. “There’s always a perception of you as an artist, but they never get it quite right. It was like a bull’s-eye into my heart of who I am, and it was actually really wonderful to see. Previously, they were just quick artist collaborations, but now I am in the house.”
Oxblood was not driven by money or success, he contended, but “by the passion for creating something and dreaming, which I think is every artist’s first goal to achieve.”
For her part, Luchi said she had been following Dr. Woo’s work for 15 years, “attracted by the fine lines and the chicness that he gave to his drawings and his art, his design style, and the geometries, totally different from anything else.” Also, they share a love for Japanese culture, she said.
Woo is no stranger to Golden Goose — in 2023 he created a capsule collection for the Italian brand inspired by storied Luigi Bevilacqua’s Venetian textiles. Another degree of connection is that Luchi is Campara’s partner.
The Oxblood store offers 40 product categories, said Luchi, including collectible pieces, all highly crafted, and Dr. Woo’s graphics and designs embellish T-shirts, hoodies, denim, caps, field jackets, handbags, and mules in the best fabrics, mainly from Japan, and made in Italy. In fact, Woo praised the “amazing infrastructure” built by Luchi, in addition to her design talent and understanding of the materials.
A long, fluid black evening slipdress intricately embellished and finely embroidered with tiny birds and spiderwebs was a stunner — coming with a price tag of 25,000 euros.
Pieces are available to order through in-store appointments or via video meetings as customization is an essential pillar of the brand, with a delivery time of up to 12 weeks. “We are not a fashion brand pumping out the same designs on shirts, we strive to project and promote individuality,” said Luchi.
There are also Woo’s personal references, revisiting some of his own vintage clothes. “Funny enough, in the beginning, I had a little clothing brand myself before I got into tattooing, and I was in the skateboarder world. And then I had a brand, and I worked at a select shop in the ’90s carrying high-end denim and fashion brands,” he recalled.
This was before he apprenticed for famous tattoo artist Mark Mahoney. “That was like my university. I decided to drop everything I was doing and start there. Long story short, I worked my way through there, and tattooing brought me into a world where it kind of opened that door again. It’s incredible, I could never have imagined that I’d end up here when I first started.”
Oxblood creative references include Meret Oppenheim, Louise Bourgeois, Joseph Beuys, Sarah Lucas, Liz Magor, Jenny Holzer, Batia Suter, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Pier Paolo Pasolini, David Lynch, René Clément, and more.
Handbags retail at around 4,000 euros; a sweatshirt between 750 and 1,600 euros, and a T-shirt between 400 and 700 euros. A necklace can ring in at up to 25,000 euros.
Oxblood’s e-commerce will be active in 20 days, said Luchi, and a store in Paris is in the plans, expected to open in two years. “In the next five years, we are planning to open Tokyo and L.A.,” she said.
While wholesale is not a channel they are looking at, in January Selfridges will carry Oxblood perfumes and sunglasses.
Asked about the decision to expand across different categories, which include glasses, ceramics serigraphed by hand, sheets and whiskey or wine bottles with Oxblood decorations, among others, Luchi said they are important to convey a comprehensive vision, and that special projects, jewelry and limited pieces will be key. “We are not working like the fashion system, or by collection. We will always aim for special items, communicated by word of mouth and through our social media strategy,” she said.