Strategic Business Unit? Heard of it? I hadn’t either, till I recently did some recognisance in Rome. It’s menswear. It’s considered pretty hipster when compared to the city’s other purveyors of more classic Italian menswearism. And it’s, well, pretty interesting. It’s kind of like a Roman Albam. Understated – loads of cotton blazers, chinos, denim and yet more cotton blazers – it stands out from the more flouncy, local sprezzatura, by doing less.
For those already wardrobe-rich with navy cotton blazering, you’ll find some print shirts – no doubt designed to be tamed beneath navy cotton blazering and oddly a sort of collarless boiler suit , to keep their anti-classic credentials high. It’s all presented in a double-roomed enclave of weathered paint, artfully crumbling plaster and antlers.
So Strategic Business Unit then. I still can’t make up my mind if it’s the coolest brand name I’ve ever heard, or just the brand name trying the hardest to sound like the coolest brand name I’ve ever heard?