INTERVIEW: Jeep European designer on genuine collabs and the Camel Trophy

Recently promoted former head of Alfa Romeo Jean-Philippe Imperato was undeniably an Alfisti, Klaus Busse absolutely cares about Maserati and at Jeep, well, there we have Daniele Calonaci.

Calonaci is currently four years into the role of head of design for Jeep in the EMEA region. For an Italian designer, he is a rather understated man, not about to assault you with energy like many. But just a quick glance at his Instagram account and you’ll find that he’s not just ended up at Jeep. Calonaci is a Jeep fan.

Perhaps more importantly, Calonaci cares about not only how he goes about his work with Jeep, but also who he works with. The recent launch of a collaboration with The North Face (TNF) might seem on the surface like an attempt to just cash in on two similar brands. But underneath it all there seems to be a genuine wish to work with the right company.

“I have an old car. A really old car with old materials, I am restoring it and I really want to use the materials that we’ve developed for the new Avenger in it,” he says as GRR sat down with him in an Italian hotel.

But that’s not all Calonaci owns. He has a Wrangler. And he doesn’t have a Wrangler just for cruising around Turin standing out from the crowd of Fiats. Calonaci uses his Wrangler exactly how it’s meant to be used. And he uses it as inspiration for his work.

“When we brought the design team from The North Face to our base in Turin, I brought my Wrangler. I brought it into the studio and that is where we started the process,” he adds.

From the outside, the two brands do seem like a good fit, one that has made its name going absolutely anywhere and another that has clothed people going absolutely anywhere. But can two sets of design teams with different products, really work together in harmony?

“I only met him [TNF design boss, Darren Shooter] for the first time when he came to Turin,” says Calonaci. “But working together was super fun. Sometimes it’s difficult to say this in English, but when I closed my eyes, listening to Darren talking about TNF, he’s talking about Jeep.

“Our pillars are basically the same. We are both American brands in Europe. European design offices with so many things in common. 

“In my mind [over the two years] nothing changed. With this collaboration we are both stronger. It is the most natural collaboration to do with Jeep. In fact, for many years we had people asking us why we don’t work with The North Face. It just seems like the perfect collaboration. It’s the reason we call this collab co-believing. It just works.”

Co-believing is an awful bit of marketing nonsense. And from being ensconced in the heart of major business, Calonaci is full of such buzzwords. But at its heart there is a message that Jeep wants people to be sure of. Both it and The North Face have a shared reason for being. So, working together wasn’t like other recent brand collabs.

“If you look at the approach Mercedes took recently with Moncler. It was much less technical than ours,” he adds. “They are looking for just the best names possible.

“I don’t think TNF should be intended as a fashion brand at all. People buy a Renegade because the Wrangler exists. They buy a Nupste jacket because they see it on an explorer.”

Going further, and proving perhaps more that he has a genuine heart for Jeep, Colanaci compares this to the appeal found by Land Rover through the Camel Trophy. Potential buyers seeing cars actually achieving things makes them want to buy. That, he says, is why TNF and Jeep both survive, both are brands that have halo products that genuinely do what they say they do. As nice as that is, it’s extremely warming to hear a modern designer directly reference the Camel Trophy.

When asked if there is a potential for more work with The North Face, maybe even some Jeep-branded clothing, Calonaci won’t rule it out. “Sometimes you see very weird brand collaborations. High fashion and a commercial vehicle,” he said. “But with TNF it was the best idea to work and design together.

“At the moment we only work on the Avenger. Jeep has had many collaborations with other fashion brands. I would never say ‘never’, but what we have found with The North Face, it is not a fashion brand. It is a technical brand. At the beginning we searched for many different brands, but none was as perfect as TNF.

“Every material we use has a meaning. For sure the Avenger is an entry level, never compared to a Wrangler, but we want to be the best in class in every segment.”

These are words that could of course ring truly hollow if in three years’ time people have torn their Avenger’s seats to pieces just getting in and out. But there’s a genuine hope and passion in both delivery and meaning that breaks through the overblown PR you’ll always find when two brands contribute to a launch.

Combine the genuine love for Jeep and an apparent wish to find genuinely useful new products, and Stellantis would seem to have found yet another excellent hire to push one of its brands forward.