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Fashion

A LOVE LETTER TO DUBLIN FROM REJJIE SNOW

“This is Dublin, a small city with a whole lot to say.”- Rejjie Snow

If you are a fan of C.P. Company their Summer 2019 campaign will be right up your street. Scroll through the images and watch the video and you’ll see some familiar sights from the Poolbeg towers to Moore Street all appearing as a backdrop to the brand’s streetwear.

Billed as a “cultural project,” the campaign features Rejjie Snow - the Irish hip-hop recording artist and record producer from Dublin, his look is the perfect fit for the brand’s series 'Eyes on The City', highlighting their iconic fabrication within a unique cultural setting.

Shot by his long-time friend Joshua Gordon, Rejjie walks through the streets in C.P. while giving his original take on the fair city. And that take is boxing rings, Dublin wit from the street and rapping on Dollymount strand.

Speaking about the campaign on the video he says: “I’m super proud to be Irish, it’s in my DNA, it’s all I am and it’s all I know. For a small country we have always proved ourselves and that’s never going to change.”

SPORTSWEAR FOR MODERN LIFE

C.P. Company has been around since 1971, founded by Massimo Osti under the original name Chester Perry. The brand has always taken inspiration from military and workwear design. Osti was a true innovator and he shaped a completely new way for the modern man to dress based on functionality and form. Bold design, radical materials and experimental manufacturing techniques meant that he redefined sportswear for urban life.

CASUAL CULTURE

It’s well known that the casual football scene of the 1980s adopted C.P. Company as one of its key brands, but the ongoing fascination with this period in popular media has meant casual culture is still as relevant now as it was in the days of derelict terracing and meticulously tracksuited guys.

In Vice Magazine, Luke Taylor is quoted as saying “there is also a sort of self-expression in casual culture which is about absconding from a mundane reality, something which most of us can relate to on some level. That is why, despite the ongoing association with violence and the more unsavoury elements of the scene, many feel that casual culture and what's happening on the street is as relevant as ever“.

Today streetwear is a mishmash of past and present cultures emerging and blending with different scenes. That's why a rap artist like Rejjie Snow is so important he connects casual culture with rapper culture and offers his own unique spin on how to wear it now.

REJJIE’S HOOD

When Dublin native Alex Anyaegbunam, aka Rejjie Snow, first told people he wanted to be a rapper, he would often get the same response: “But you’re Irish?’”

Anyaegbunam became the first non-US hip-hop artist signed to 300 Entertainment, he has toured with Kendrick Lamar and Lily-Rose Depp has appeared on the video for his single "All Around The World". He recently relocated to Brooklyn and released his album Dear Annie last February.

Snow was only 17 when he left home in Dublin to pursue a soccer scholarship in the US. Growing up in the Drumcondra suburb and attending Belvedere College, it wasn’t until he moved to the States that he started understanding Dublin and what the city had to offer.

"I’d go to football games here and everyone was wearing CP Company. That was the first time I was introduced to it," Snow says in a quote from an interview for "A Love Letter to Dublin." "As a kid you’d gravitate towards that – you’d see people wearing C.P. and it felt like it gave them some stature. I remember being about 11 and seeing the goggles on the hoods and being amazed by it".

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Dublin hip-hop recording artist Rejjie Snow (Alex Anyaegbunam) on Dollymount Strand wearing C.P. Company’s iconic goggle-hooded, military influenced jacket.

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THE NEW DROP

The spring drop as seen on Rejjie sees C.P. continuing to reference the brand's iconic, original, colour palette of warm greys, khakis, military greens and navy blues, first developed in the 1980s to reflect the new role of the military and sportswear in European urban subcultures it still has relevance today.

When this campaign launched on Instagram Rejjie said: “It’s been so wonderful working with all the lads and girls on this one [the C.P Company Eyes on the City series]. It's one of my favourite brands!”

You’ll find C.P. Company Spring Summer 2019 in our Dublin store and online now.

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Rejjie Snow performing on stage at Bestival, Lulworth Estate, Dorset, UK.

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