Italian Cult: the full story of ENERGIE

Between the beginning of the '90s and the '00s Italy was literally invested by a very powerful tornado. There is also a scale that measures the intensity of the tornados, which is called Scala Fujita and goes from F0 (Light damage) up to F5 (Incredible damage, houses raised from the foundations, etc.). The tornado in question had a name like all the tornados, it's called (called?) ENERGIE.

The Italian streetwear brand, born thanks to the perseverance and intuition of a man who had seen things that other men had never even imagined, managed to "exploit" a part of the street culture of those times never approached before in those terms in Italy.

Wicky Hassan was born in Tripoli in 1955 from a Jewish family of cloth merchants and moved to Rome in 1967, no one could even imagine that he would become the patron of a company with a turnover of 700 million euros and 400 stores all over the world. Especially considering the context in which he had grown up, I am talking about the bloody pogrom of the Arab population against the Jewish community following the Israeli victory in the six-day war. Precisely because of all this, the Hassan family decided to move to Rome bringing their business with them. Wicky Hassan's journey continues first as a clerk and then as director of a clothing store in via Del Seminario, practically behind the Pantheon, later he decided it was time to get involved personally and opened his clothing store "Allergia" in Via dei Due Macelli, also in Rome.

His ability to look where others did not even think of looking allowed him to dare and to collect a huge success thanks to the intuition of selling products and brands not yet distributed in Italy. 

I was the first to import Timberland, Converse and Levi's 501. Outside there was a crazy line, on Saturday afternoon the road was blocked. 

Thanks to the background and his intuition, he decided that he would apply a very loud Mexican fabric to those ripped jeans he had in store, and that was the beginning of it all. The requests were overwhelming and the decisive step arrived, he opened the first ENERGIE store in via del Corso and in 1989 together with Renato Rossi he founded the Sixty group (Miss Sixty, Killah, Murphy & Nye, Refrigwear and of course ENERGIE). Here we could write an immense chapter dedicated to the "cheap" fashion of that period and suddenly I am assailed by nightmares inhabited by Fornarina shoes, Onyx acrylic t-shirts, flared pants and I will stop here unless I will disturb your dreams.

At the beginning of the 90s, the store became a brand characterized by strong and bright colors, the references were those of graffitis, street art and skate culture but without being a direct expression of those cultures and despite being often associated with clubbers.

That E printed in the lower part of the right back pocket of the jeans, symbol of the brand, in those years was an absolute must, I think it was one of the symbols that I have seen the most in my entire life. It seems almost absurd today but I can assure you it was.

Then the decline came. In the 2000s the space that had cropped up ENERGIE began to shrink to almost disappear, a big crisis hit the whole Sixty group. Specifically, ENERGIE tried to revive by renewing everything, logo, graphics, fit and trying to get on a train that had already missed.

The factors were many but the most important was certainly the serious illness that hit Hassan with which he fought with all his strength until his death in 2011. The founder, soul and creative mind from the beginning had to step aside and leave, it was not by his will and the light went out slowly. Now the group is in the hands of the pan-Asian investment company Crescent Hyde Park which aims to relaunch the whole group but if you want updates on Energie and go to www.energie.it you will find a message that unfortunately does not say anything, not even by mistake, what this brand represented for millions of boys at the beginning of the 90s.