Music Artists / Culture / Indie BrandsCULTURE 08 Jun, 2024
Oversized Denim and a Much Bigger Presence
Oversized denim, exaggerated sneakers and a cast drawn from rap and basketball. Domenico Formichetti’s PDF gives familiar streetwear shapes a much bigger presence.
Proportion sets the tone at PDF. A sneaker becomes almost cartoonish. Denim takes on volume and movement. Sportswear arrives with the confidence of a stage outfit. The Italian label builds much of its appeal around that sense of scale, making the silhouette an event in itself.
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From Milan’s Rap Scene
Launched in 2023, PDF stands for Project Domenico Formichetti. Its founder had already spent years working around Italian music, styling artists including Sfera Ebbasta, Ghali and the Dark Polo Gang.
That experience gives the label a useful starting point. Formichetti understands clothes as part of a complete image: the artist wearing them, the music around them and the way an outfit reads in a photograph or on stage.
On PDF’s website, he describes the project as a response to gaps in his own wardrobe. He makes the things he wants to wear and cannot find. That personal appetite runs through the collection.
Everything Gets Bigger
“PDF clothes take space,” Formichetti told GQ.
The statement explains a lot. His references include the basketball imagery, music videos and oversized sportswear he grew up watching from Italy. Jerseys, shorts and tracksuits become material to reshape through enlarged proportions, washes, distressing and unexpected embellishment.
The recognisable starting point matters. You can still read the basketball short or varsity jacket inside the finished look, even as its dimensions and surface treatments become more expressive. PDF lets the original reference remain visible while pushing its attitude further.
Yachty Joins the Line-Up
For Spring/Summer 2027, presented in New York in September 2026, Formichetti put that relationship between sport and music directly on the runway.
Lil Yachty walked in the show and helped style and prepare the models. Rich The Kid and basketball player Liz Cambage were also among the cast, bringing people from those overlapping worlds into the presentation.
The clothes carried the same crossover energy. A jersey-inspired mini dress appeared embroidered with pearls; a varsity jacket was covered in sparkling stones. A Champion collaboration introduced retro nylon tracksuits and basketball sets decorated with stars.
It gave the collection a clear visual language: the familiarity of sportswear, amplified through scale, colour and decoration.
Collaborations offer another route into PDF’s approach. Progetto Napapijri by PDF reworks the outdoor brand’s established pieces through changes in material and dimension. The assortment includes versions of the Skidoo and Rainforest anoraks, alongside the Bering bag.
Footwear provides room for a different kind of experiment. PDF’s current line-up includes the BOL sneaker with Zellerfeld, a 3D-printed design available in several colours.
Both projects extend the same interest in reshaping a familiar category. An anorak or a sneaker becomes an opportunity to reconsider how much space an everyday object can occupy in a look.
A New Shape for Italian Streetwear
PDF’s strongest quality is the consistency of that appetite. The proportions, the musical connections and the willingness to decorate sportswear all belong to the same wardrobe.
Formichetti draws on images that travelled through basketball, rap and youth culture, then rebuilds them through his own taste. The result feels comfortable with excess: more volume, more texture, more room for personality.
At PDF, getting dressed comes with permission to take up space.
Explore the label at pdfchannel.com.
Images courtesy of PDF.
