On June 4th, 2010, a sunny friday afternoon in Amsterdam’s romantic zoo Artis, I had this lovely interview with Diesel’s former creative kingpin Wilbert Das, for Blend magazine. A recommended read if you’re into those 3 P’s, People, Planet, Profit, yet without the inflated Preacher ego. He’s just a great guy with great people skills who’s loving his new Brazilian eco-resort Uxua Casa.
one of the stylishly handcrafted UXUA Casas
Wilbert Das (born 1963) has been ‘the Dutchman at Diesel’ for just about as long as we all know about this Italian über-brand. Twenty-one years to be exact. When news hit that he was stepping out from behind Renzo Rosso to leave the iconic company he helped create as its 360 degrees creative director, all heads turned to his ‘holiday-hobby project’, the Uxua Casa Hotel in Brazil. Like: now we’re talking successful living.
The Uxua Casa Hotel in Trancoso, a tiny coastal village in Bahia, northeastern Brazil, is a cluster of eight separate ‘casas’ and a treehouse, all renovated, rebuilt and restyled using local craftsmen and amplified traditional techniques. Hidden in lush tropical gardens with a full 5-star infrastructure including restaurant, spa, private beach lounge and a healing quartz pool, this luxurious eco-loco getaway is little short of a paradise. A very personal paradise no less, realized by someone who, when it comes to fashionably styled hotels for one, has pretty much seen it all. If Uxua is Wilbert Das’s next step after everything he created at Diesel, which is not just the many clothing and accessories lines, but also the campaigns, showrooms, flagship stores, the Miami hotel, fragrances and in the end furniture, it looks and feels like quite the antidote to all the brash young and trendy violence he’s been responsible for all his professional life. With all the time in the world on his hands these days it wasn’t hard to lure him to the retro-romantic Amsterdam zoo Artis for a good long Style of Life chat.
