About Durcotta
Durcotta is Felipe Caplan Gottardello
Hey there, it's me, Felipe. Here is a bit about the my life so far the Durcotta project:
My first contact with art came on my early teens, influenced by my father's curiosity regarding technology and computer graphics. Incentivized by him, I first started messing around with photo manipulation softwares and I would create silly graphics about myself, my family dog and online games.
Not much later, I found a deep sense of belonging in skateboarding and street culture. Coming from a working class background, the appreciation for a "do it yourself" attitude made me really interested in this cultural world. BMXing came soon after, giving me and my friends the freedom to explore my hometown (Curitiba) without logistic limits. From dodging speeding bi-articulated buses on the chaotic rush-hour streets, to the mysterious, and sometimes dangerous, silence of 4 a.m. bike rides, I've absorbed it all.
These experiences shaped how I saw my city, the people, as well as the visual and cultural world around me. By my teenage years, I already knew that designing clothes and working within art, culture and fashion would be inevitable. I started my first clothing brand when I was 17, and then again when I was 26. Both of these projects failed, because I was too immature to really understand what they meant.
After years traveling, exploring and working in the design and technology industry, I have eventually settled in Baleal and started surfing, where my most recent work finds its inspiration.
About the project
Clothing is much more than a layer of protection or statement of civility, it's a matter of identity. By choosing how we dress we project to others what we would like to represent in the world. Not only by the graphics or appearance, but also how it was made, what is the intent of the clothes that we wear and what this represents in a bigger context than our everyday lives.
Durcotta has two mottos that represent the essence of the project:
Clothing is the canvas
It represents the art concept behind the project, it previews one of its main pillars which is creativity and artistic expression. It's how, for me, clothing is a replacement for a canvas. A medium where my art is thought and executed.
Quality is unbothered by time
It represents the quality aspect of the project. Real clothing made to last. Not to fit in a business model or in a season sale. The ethical and creative aspect is above the business, even if it means that the business aspect needs to end. The idea is to build a sustainable, high quality and highly creative project. If it doesn't scale as a business, then it will keep being a personal project focused on creativity and quality.