Pinko’s Caterina Negra Is Keeping Fashion Fresh—And Looking To The Future!

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Over the years, Caterina Negra has led Pinko with a modern mindset. We spoke with the creative director about her Fall 2024 collection, family legacy, and how she keeps things fresh for the brand.

Pinko has evolved over the years. Who is the Pinko woman now?
She’s a strong independent woman; she’s distinguished by being free from the judgment of others; she’s determined to dare with her own style. Pinko collections help her feel confident and stand out with pride. The Pinko woman likes to mix feminine clothes, minidresses and skirts with blazers and masculine pieces; she has her own well-defined and contemporary style.

Caterina Negro

The brand is so personal to you. How does it feel to continue your family legacy?
When you grow up surrounded by one thing and you see doing that thing every day of your life—clothes, fabrics, sketches, seeing the creation of a whole collection—you realize that it’s normality and you don’t feel like you’re doing something ordinary or a job so out of the box. It’s part of my education, routine, discipline, and fortunately my passion. Talking about fashion, fabrics, silhouettes, colors, numbers, things people liked or disliked, watching the market trends—this is what has always surrounded me, and I feel lucky and honored in being able to spend most of my day doing something I love. I thank my parents and life for giving me this opportunity. I believe it’s a wonderful thing to be able to create such a powerful product that can excite and make women feel better and more beautiful. I have a great example of two parents who have worked and still work with energy, passion, and a strong presence in the company. This is what I’ve learned, and what I do every day to be able to carry on what they’ve created to the best of my ability. I grew up with the brand, so Pinko is like a sister to me!

How would you describe your role in the company, and what’s a typical day at the office like for you?
My day starts early. I like to have time for myself, for my animals, in order to start the day full of energy. A typical day in the company can have different topics. I deal with several areas, from pure creativity—moodboards, sketches, fabric choice, prototype vision—to more strategic parts of collection structure. I have interactions with the retail area to define together the display of the garments in the stores, up to working with stylists for the final part of communication and photos. I end my day with my animals, and that’s what allows me to have a lot of pure energy for the next day! I can’t imagine any other kind of life. I wouldn’t be able to do what I do, to bring into my work and to my team so much enthusiasm, if I didn’t live in this way.

Pinko’s Fall 2024 collection

How does Pinko keep things fresh?
Pinko remains current and always topical through its understanding of fashion. We look at fashion as an amusement park, a place where all women can have fun and freely explore new territories with pride and confidence. Pinko is cutting-edge and innovative. We embraced the opportunities offered by new technologies. For example, we chose to enhance our brand values by embracing the Web3 and launching the iconic Love Bag in the metaverse.

Tell us about Pinko’s Fall 2024 collection. What inspired the new line?
The Fall 2024 collection is inspired by New York style. It celebrates the individual freedom that allows every woman to express her own style every day by drawing on a complete and consistent wardrobe that seduces with eye-catching silhouettes, fine materials, and special details. The girls who populate the streets of the Lower East Side are hyper cool, fresh, and young. Neutral shades of black, white, and tobacco mix with vibrant accents of yellow, turquoise, and teal, as well as pastel touches of blue and pink.

Pinko’s Fall 2024 collection

Any go-to pieces you’re wearing this season?
There are three items we should all have for the [Fall] 2024 season—a leather vest, a pencil skirt, and a polo shirt, which I thought of and designed for the Winter collection in different materials and fabrics.

Pinko is known for its handbags. What’s the most popular one?
Our most popular item is the Love Bag, which was born in 2016 as Pinko’s true declaration of love for the beautiful, the essential, the unique. The Love Bag is an iconic style, instantly recognizable, thanks to its chain strap and squared lines. Since its launch, its popularity has boomed, becoming the “It bag” in the Pinko heritage and the brand’s most successful item. The Love bag family has expanded with new shapes and sizes: classic and mini, baby, big, round and puff, backpack, satchel, smart bag, roller bag, and more. However, one thing stays the same—the two birds of the Love Birds monogram—the distinctive detail of all the models in the Love Bag line, representing the love, freedom, and lightness that characterize the feminine universe.

What are some items you always have in your bag?
I always bring a headlight, a mirror, and a multipurpose knife with me. It always comes in handy going horseback riding in the woods. I can’t ride without it!

Where do you find creative inspiration?
I find inspiration by living fully every moment and every day doing things I enjoy. This allows me to have a lot of pure energy and is the fuel for me at any time. My work is my passion, and as such it doesn’t represent effort. I could compare my passion for fashion to my love for horses; I never get tired of it. I love living in contact with nature and with my animals, seeing new things, at the same time I feel the need to travel and have new experiences. This mix stimulates my creativity and helps me find an inner peace, which is essential to find the charge.

How does Pinko plan to expand in the United States?
So far, Pinko has a presence in the U.S. with the store inside the Aventura Mall in Aventura, Florida, which opened just a few months ago with an event with the Little Lighthouse Foundation. A new Pinko journey to the States has just begun and will surely continue with more special projects.

What are you most excited about this fall?
I think with enthusiasm about the possibility that the new Fall collection [mixes] basic items with more fun and daring ones. The leopard-print faux fur coat, which includes all our soul and DNA, definitely comes to mind. Not only [is it] one of the new collection’s leading products—in fact, you will see it worn by Italian actress Mariacarla Boscono in the new Fall 2024 ad campaign—but it represents the self-confident being of the Pinko woman, knowing how to play with texture and clothes that aren’t taken for granted and always keep up with trends. And above all, in line with my mindset, it represents Pinko’s increasingly sustainable fashion philosophy. It is in fact a long coat in spotted faux fur fabric, which confirms our commitment to not using animal fur within our collections. 

All images: Courtesy of Pinko

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