FILA’s Lev Tanju Is Bringing Spirit Back to Sportswear
Eight months into his new gig as the creative director of FILA+, Lev Tanju is still having fun. We spoke to the designer ahead of the label’s FW24 release, learning more about his uncontrived vision for the sportswear staple.
After translating his love for skateboarding into a fruitful career in fashion, Lev Tanju has landed his latest trick. The British-born designer was tapped to be the creative director of FILA+ in January of this year, and he’s built on his 15 years of experience as the founder of streetwear giant Palace to deliver exactly what we were told to expect: “an elevated take on sportswear.”
Nestled into FILA’s oeuvre as a premium offshoot, FILA+ is rejuvenating the brand’s extensive archive with a contemporary lens, and under Tanju’s direction, it’s churning out energetic campaigns and collections that uplift FILA’s rich history with a refreshing, youthful candidness. For Tanju, FILA’s Italian heritage is “everything,” and now that he has all 113 years of it at his fingertips, he’s blending it with a streetwear spunk to build out a bold brand identity. Part of his task as creative director is to define what FILA+ refers to as its “aesthetic landscape,” and significant progress has been made: he’s recruited some of the most innovative photographers to establish a striking visual tone, and his design language has a consistent vintage appeal that’s reflective of Italian culture. The assets that he is serving to FILA+ consumers seem tastefully unpolished, and this is a good thing: it’s clear that he’s accentuating an element of authenticity.
In June, Tanju had American photographer Ryan McGinley take to the hills of Tuscany to capture a branding campaign with a color palette that’s very il Tricolore, and the mixed-media results are playfully raw (think college kids go out to shoot portraits with their digicams and polaroids). The images feature non-professional models, and they go beyond just the FILA+ garments, placing an emphasis on nature, interaction, and the moments at hand. Rather than coming off as manufactured, McGinley’s campaign consists of real life snippets, and it’s fun – when I spoke to Tanju over Zoom, he kept using that word to describe his FILA+ vision, and in his case, three letters can say a lot.
Now, with the release of the brand’s Fall/Winter 2024 campaign shot by British photographer Kingsley Ifill, Tanju is doubling down on his desire for extemporary aesthetics. He and Ifill have written a visual love letter to FILA’s Italian roots, shooting the edit in Sutri, a small town about 40 minutes north of Rome. FW24, which is the first FILA+ collection, oozes ‘70s Italian swagger, and the campaign shows the garments being properly lived in: an older woman wears a tan chenille tracksuit while holding her Schnauzer, an elderly man sits on a sofa with the F-box logo peeking out from under his robe, and a gentleman wearing a FILA+ necktie speaks to the press with five microphones in his face. The fast-paced fervor of city street photography has found its way to rural Italy, and with Tanju calling the shots, it was only a matter of time. He is a London boy, after all.
FILA+ FW24 is now arriving in stores (it will launch exclusively at Dover Street Market London on August 28 and be available at select retailers worldwide starting August 29), so we sat down with Tanju to chat about his experience as creative director so far, touching on his inspirations, goals, and love for all things FILA.
FILA has been around for over a century, and I remember wearing it as a little kid when my mom still chose my outfits. Did FILA have an impact on your relationship with fashion when you were growing up?
LEV TANJU: When I was growing up I played a lot of basketball, so I think my first ever memory of FILA was the Grant Hill basketball shoes. I had them when I played in school. The FILA West Ham United kit is also something that I remember from my childhood – I think those were my first experiences with FILA in sportswear.
You're no stranger to being at the helm of a label, so I wanted to ask, how are you planning to draw on your industry experience as creative director of FILA+?
Well, I've always followed my own personal taste, and I've worked with a lot of different brands since I founded Palace, so I know how to get into an archive and highlight the strong points. I've not been classically trained as a creative director or a designer, so I’m always just doing what I really want to do.
If you were speaking to someone who has no idea that FILA launched this new sub-label, how would you give them a sense of what it’s doing differently?
FILA+ is 100 years of history, and it’s bringing value back to sportswear. It’s a nod to FILA’s heritage, but it’s elevated, creating new products and doing new things.
Speaking of heritage, how big of a focal point is FILA’s Italian heritage when it comes to FILA+?
I mean, it’s everything to me. A lot of people don’t remember that that’s where FILA comes from. It’s the very focal point of the whole business. The team’s Italian. I’m working on it in Italy. FILA+ is built on Italian culture, and I’m really enjoying spending my time with Italian people. It’s fun.
In an earlier answer, you touched on pulling from a brand’s archive. Are there any specific references, either archival or visual, that have been especially impactful to FILA+ so far?
[Reinhold] Messner, the mountain climber, is a massive inspiration. Björn Borg as well, he changed how people dress to play sports. These are two FILA ambassadors that have made sportswear history, so I've been looking at what they wore, both actively and casually. And then Britpop, as I’m from England. George Michael, Blur, they were all wearing FILA in really cool ways in the '90s. I also keep going back to West Ham and Fiorentina, the football teams They were sponsored by FILA, and the kits were just so good.
Fall/Winter 2024, your first collection, arrives in stores later this month. What kind of narrative is it pushing?
The first season is really highlighting fabrics and shapes. It’s fun, it’s clean, and it’s focusing on the other way to wear sportswear – for chilling, not performing. That’s what I love about it… it's hard to find a good tracksuit that doesn’t look like you’ve just finished a 100 meter sprint. There are drill boots, which are a kids’ shoe from the archive that I reworked into adult sizes, and there’s a little bit of formalwear too, like nice shirting. The collection is honest to the roots of the brand, but it’s elevated.
I also want to touch on the photographic campaigns that have come out – as creative director, how did you decide what direction you wanted to take FILA+ in visually?
I want to shoot real people in the real world. That was my first thought. I don't want to shoot someone who’s been paid to wear the tracksuit, I want to shoot someone who would genuinely wear it and like it. That’s why I decided to work with Ryan McGinley and Kingsley Ifill – they were both able to deliver campaigns that are candid and relatable. One of the models, Vladi, was the driver of the van that Ryan and I were riding in. I was like, ‘This guy’s amazing’, so Ryan said, ‘Let’s take a photo of him. He’s so cool.’ Kingsley does the same – I’ve seen him develop into an amazing photographer who captures real images of real people. Overall, being creative director has just been super fun. Everyone’s having a good time, and I want that to reflect in the visuals that we create.
Moving on to Spring/Summer 2025, which was presented in conjunction with Milan Fashion Week. How does that collection contribute to your vision for FILA+?
It really reveals the direction I’m going in. There’s an emphasis on range – the campaign shows how the garments look on a 16-year-old kid and a 65-year-old man. We shot skateboarders and we shot local Milanese people. I wanted to give attention to sportswear that is less high performance, like tennis and football shirts.
Do you have a favorite FILA+ piece that has been conceived under your creative direction?
The chenille and acetate tracksuits from season one are so clean and crisp. I love them. Then there's the LA Hat. It’s more of a fun, tongue in cheek garment, and I've been wearing it constantly.
What has been your favorite memory or experience thus far as creative director of FILA+?
I think it all comes down to the product. Having an idea in my head and then being able to wear it myself days later is incredible. When you work with an Italian footwear factory, they’ll bring out a boot 10 days after you send them a sketch – the pace of how these things are done is really exciting to me. Also, just being in Italy in general has been such a cool experience, and I’m so lucky to have a small team that’s fun to be around.
What's next for you and FILA+, and where do you see the line going in the near future?
I'm excited to open pop-up stores, put on events, and work with new people, but right now, I’m concentrating on working with the team in Italy to continue creating things that are fresh and having fun while doing it. I feel very privileged to have been offered the opportunity to go through FILA’s archive – it almost doesn’t feel like a job.
