Under the Radar: Achilles Ion Gabriel
Achilles Ion Gabriel is not someone who likes to stay still. I mean this literally — during our video call, the designer cuts an animated figure on the other side of my screen, intermittently smoking a cigarette while sitting cross-legged, the upper half of his body bopping around as he explains the inner workings of his new namesake brand — but also figuratively. The Finnish-born designer is seemingly always on the move, starting something new.
In 2019, he became the creative director of the experimental sub-label CAMPERLAB, in 2020 he added its parent company, Camper, to his remit, in 2023 he relaunched his eponymous brand, and in 2024 he expanded CAMPERLAB’s offerings with its debut clothing line. Quite a busy few years. Oh yeah, and he’s about to move house for the sixth time in the past six years.
“Maybe I'm restless, but I would say I’m more curious and I like to do stuff,” says Ion Gabriel towards the end of our fast-paced, half-hour conversation, his high energy levels unabating throughout the chat. “I find it difficult to lay down on a sofa and take a nap. For me, it's almost impossible, unless I'm really tired or hungover.”
Reopening his namesake brand has been his biggest undertaking of late. The brand — first founded in 2019, straight after he graduated from university — has been left dormant since his hiring at CAMPERLAB and is back for round two, although, this time it’s a completely different entity: the original Achilles Ion Gabriel only made shoes, but now it’s a full-blown fashion label, with runway shows and all.
Naturally, his namesake brand is the most personal of the three labels he sits at the head of. This is where he builds his dream wardrobe, lets his personality really roam free, and doesn’t have to wrestle with the weight that comes with being the creative director of a big, established company — “If I cause a scandal with my brand, it's not like I'm offending a whole heritage brand. It's just me there to say: ‘oOops, sorry,’” says Ion Gabriel.
“[With Achilles Ion Gabriel], I wanted something a bit messier, maybe nastier, and a bit sarcastic. Some really conservative people might be offended by my boots that say ‘move bitch’ or the belt that looks like a dick… it isn’t for a beige person, but I’m not a beige person.”
The design freedom that comes with having his name on the label shows itself most notably in humor cleverly imbued into Achilles Ion Gabriel collections. With the aforementioned leather dick belt, for example, the joke is obvious but not crass, its phallic properties subtle enough that you only realize them with a second glance: “I don’t need to create clown clothes to be funny. I want you to look at things really closely, and then there is always something a bit off,” says Ion Gabriel.
Sometimes, the punchline is so multi-layered that it’s almost a private in-joke, held between Achilles Ion Gabriel the man and Achilles Ion Gabriel the brand: in his first collection, a cropped cream T-shirt is printed with his first tattoo from when he was 17 (“I want that feeling back," it reads) and for Spring/Summer 2025, he has made pointed boots with a photo of his feet printed on the outside. Very personal touches, included largely for his own amusement.
But remember, these aren’t just funny clothes.
One thing you need to know about Ion Gabriel is that he loves contrast. He mentions it regularly, and it even shows itself in what he’s wearing: a visibly old, paint-splattered, navy adidas sweatshirt which, as soon as our call ends and he goes to the airport to pick up a friend, he will layer under a Prada leather jacket.
For all the playfulness his brand exudes, it’s counterbalanced and contrasted by skillful design crafted to be taken with 100 percent seriousness. Tailoring is hand embellished and inventively cut, the nappa cow leather is top-grade, the footwear is made in Italy… there’s high-end craftsmanship behind the frivolous jokes. And everything’s made to last, the idea of only wearing something once doesn’t compute to Ion Gabriel — “I'm so against fast fashion, [the concept of] it makes me nauseous,” he says.
That nausea is partly induced by his love for visibly used clothing (before he wears a new T-shirt, he throws it in the wash with sandpaper to get the perfect worn-in feel), a love that’s at odds with the throwaway nature of fast fashion, but also comes from an environmental standpoint. “Every brand has to choose between using planet-destroying cotton or something better. Of course, I go with the better option,” he says. “But what I learned from Camper is the best thing you can do to be sustainable is to make things durable. I think this is really crucial.”
The multi-faceted nature of this fledgling brand is a direct reflection of its founder. On the one hand, Ion Gabriel describes himself as a natural comedian (something his meme-filled personal Instagram account can attest to) but on the other, he’s the creative head of three fashion brands, clocking close to 100-hour work weeks, and bringing important topics like sustainability to the foreground of a 50-year-old company.
Achilles Ion Gabriel the comedian, the ingenious creative, the environmentally conscious trailblazer, the curious workaholic… all of his personality traits feed back into his label. Through Camper, a larger audience has been introduced to Achilles Ion Gabriel’s talent; now his brand is offering that audience a further peak behind the curtain.
