LE FREAK CEST CHIC - DESIGN IN THE BLOODLINE

 

Maria Pia Giustiniani - Le Freak Cest Chic - Co-founder

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As a barware, lighting and home accessories design company, at Thomas Fuchs Creative we specialize in handmade goods. Every week we give you a behind the scenes look at the people, places and things that inspire us.

 This week we take you behind the scenes of the up and coming fashion brand Le Freak Cest Chic. Some people are born into creativity. Others discover it along the way. And then there are those, like our adopted goddaughter Maria Pia Giustiniani, for whom creativity is quite simply in the blood.

We have had the pleasure of watching Maria Pia grow into a talented young woman with her own vision, aesthetic, and entrepreneurial spirit. Her new brand, Le Freak C’est Chic, is a wonderful expression of that individuality, bringing together a fresh perspective, Italian heritage, and a playful sense of style.

Of course, her creative DNA is extraordinary.

Her father, the renowned architect Filippo Giustiniani, has built a distinguished career restoring and reimagining historic Italian palazzos, bringing contemporary sensibilities to centuries-old architecture while respecting the beauty of their heritage.

Her mother is at the helm of Villari, the celebrated Italian luxury porcelain house renowned for its extraordinary craftsmanship and artistic collaborations.

Villari also holds a particularly special place in our own creative journey. Thomas Fuchs designed a spectacular chandelier featuring giant porcelain lilies that hangs in HARRODS in London, alongside barware and dinnerware collections he created in collaboration with the Italian house.

So perhaps it is only natural that Maria Pia should inherit this extraordinary marriage of architecture, art, craftsmanship, and design. Yet what makes her story interesting is not simply the family she comes from, but the distinctive creative identity she is building for herself.

As entrepreneurs and designers ourselves, we know that creating a brand is about far more than producing something beautiful. It requires a point of view, a compelling story, the right partnerships, and above all, the courage to be different.

We sat down with Maria Pia to ask five questions about building a brand from the ground up, and how a new generation of Italian creatives is transforming heritage into something entirely its own.

1. Every Great Brand Begins with a Story

What inspired the creation of Le Freak C’est Chic? Where did the name originate, and what was the moment when you knew you wanted to turn your vision into a brand?

There's no strategic story behind it. It came very spontaneously, almost naively, when I was 18. I loved Chic's song "Le Freak," and I felt it captured exactly what I wanted my pieces to be: not rigid, but playful, while still being elegant. That's the whole idea held in two words, freak and chic, together.

Looking back, I think it still says something true about the woman I design for: she doesn't want stiff, serious clothes. She wants something with a bit of mischief in it that's still refined.

Five years later, at 23, I still think it holds up. I've listened to a lot of Giorgio Armani interviews, and one line has stayed with me: in a 1983 conversation with Enzo Biagi, asked what you should never do to be elegant, he said you shouldn't give the impression of being dressed too deliberately. Better to have a casual air, which doesn't mean being sloppy.

That's exactly the spirit I want "freak" and "chic" to hold together.

 

2. Finding the Right Partner

Building a brand is rarely a solo journey. How did you find your business partner, and how do your different personalities, talents, and creative strengths complement one another?

She came into my life as a friend before she became part of the brand, and in these last months she's turned, very quickly, into an essential piece of it. I bring the visions, the images, the obsessions that don't always explain themselves; she brings her feet on the ground, exactly where mine tend not to touch it. She believed in this project in the moments I was the first one doubting it.

My Art History professor used to remind me of something Socrates already knew: alone, you're only talking to yourself; together, real thoughts are born.

3. The Places That Shape Our Creativity

Between the timeless beauty of Rome, the mountains surrounding Bassano del Grappa, and the seaside palazzo, you have grown up surrounded by extraordinary environments. How have these places influenced your aesthetic and the identity of Le Freak C’est Chic?

I believe deeply that the place you live in shapes, in a very real way, what you make. Palazzo Giustiniani, our holiday home, is baroque in its architecture, and it has directly inspired our lace collection, which picks up that romantic, sumptuous side of the palazzo's Andalusian baroque motifs.

I still remember the first time my father took me to see the house, and my mother was there too. I listened to him, struck, as he told me about the Andalusian baroque that runs across the whole facade, and about the color of the stone: how it changes when the sun hits it, and how it changes when it doesn't. That magic has stayed with me ever since, and it's there, unmistakably, in the lace collection.

Bassano del Grappa, in the Veneto, has been just as much a source of inspiration, but in a different register: the mindset around work there: professionalism, craftsmanship, learning from the artisans themselves, the quality of what they produce. That's what it has given me the most.

My grandparents, Cesare and Silvia Villari, were the first example of that for me, artisans and artists both, and it's really their attention to detail that I've carried with me the most.

Rome, for me, is best described the way one good friend once did, in a moment when I was discouraged and struggling to come back to the city. He quoted Fellini's La Dolce Vita, the scene where Marcello tells Maddalena, who says she'd like to live in a new city where she'd never run into anyone again: "As for me, I love Rome enormously. It's a kind of jungle, warm and quiet, where you can hide very well." Hearing it right then, I really took it in, and it's stayed true for me ever since. That's exactly what Rome is to me: a city so dispersive, so full of stimuli, that I can be entirely myself in it, and experiment, creatively and artistically. There's an energy there that comes toward me and understands me.

 

4. Creativity Is in the Blood

With a father celebrated for his architectural restorations and a mother deeply rooted in the world of Italian porcelain and luxury craftsmanship, how has growing up surrounded by design and entrepreneurship influenced your own journey? What are the most important lessons you have learned from your parents?

Growing up next to my mother opened up a more creative side of me, and my grandparents, Cesare and Silvia Villari, her parents, played a big part in that too: they worked closely with Jeff Koons, and they're artists in their own right. They let me listen to that inner, creative voice of mine, and they gave it room to exist. That has shaped my whole process, the stream of consciousness that goes into making a product. They will always be a point of reference for who I am and what I make.

They often tell me about their relationship with Jeff Koons, from the years they spent building one of his sculptures. He chose them specifically for it because of the care and attention they brought to every detail of the pieces they create, model, paint, and bring to life. That same attention to detail, that pursuit of the highest quality, has clearly shaped their work, and it's exactly what they passed on to me.

 

5. Beyond the Product: Building a Lifestyle

The most memorable brands are not simply about products; they create an emotional connection and a sense of belonging. What do you want people to feel when they discover Le Freak C’est Chic, and what kind of lifestyle and community do you hope to build around it?

I want people to feel, when they wear one of our pieces, that they're wearing something with a history: fabric that has already lived, care that was taken with it, an identity that doesn't have to choose just one side of itself. That's what I learned from my parents: to pick up old things, love them, and appreciate them for what they've been.

Beyond the clothing, I'm inviting people into the same choreography I grew up inside: a big, eclectic family where everyone is their own character, where Italian warmth sits next to English rigor, where nothing has to match to belong. If Lefreakcestchicc is a lifestyle, it's this one: an elegance that's spontaneous and a little sporty, with an authentic spirit, never something that looks constructed or perfectly calculated. That's exactly what "freak" is there for: ease, naturalness, a bit of spontaneity

A New Generation, a New Vision

For us, watching Maria Pia embark on this journey is particularly meaningful. There is something wonderful about seeing the next generation take the traditions, craftsmanship, and creative influences they have inherited and reinterpret them through their own eyes.

That is how great design evolves. Heritage provides the foundation, but individuality gives it a future.

And if there is one thing we have always believed at Thomas Fuchs Creative, it is that the most compelling brands are those that dare to have a personality.

After all, Le Freak C’est Chic!

Have a great week,

 

MICHOU