Feature: The Aries Arise Story
Aries is the brand people ask us about most and know least about. Here's the short version: two Central Saint Martins graduates who met behind the counter of a skate shop, a logo that is half Roman temple and half rat, and a clothing label that sorts its garments into Women, Men and Don't Care.
Slam City Skates, and what came before
Sofia Prantera and Fergus Purcell met in the nineties at Slam City Skates in London. She was working on the shop's own clothing label, Holmes; he'd graduated and come looking for work, turning up now and then with new drawings. She has said most of them never got used and she kept them anyway.
They both went on to other things first. Prantera co-founded Silas, which became one of the most sought-after streetwear labels of the decade and was particularly big in Japan. Purcell drew the Tri-Ferg for Palace Skateboards, which you have seen whether or not you know the name, and later worked on the Marc by Marc Jacobs relaunch with Luella Bartley and Katie Hillier.
Aries came at the turn of the 2010s, when they got back together. Purcell picked the name off the star sign — first out of the gate, and not much interested in waiting.
The temple and the rat
The Roman columns around the Aries logo aren't only a nod to Prantera being from Rome, though she is. She describes the brand's identity as a duality: "the elevated temple and the decay of the rat". That's why a rat keeps turning up across the collections alongside the classical architecture. Luxury and grot, in the same garment, on purpose.
The J'Adoro Aries graphic works the same way — a straight lift of a perfume slogan you already know, rendered in a font that isn't trying to look expensive. Purcell has been doing versions of that joke since Palace.
It's also where No Problemo comes from. The phrase started as an Aries slogan and grew into a line of its own, which is why you'll find it here as a separate No Problemo collection rather than filed under the main label.
Women, Men and Don't Care
Aries doesn't split its clothing into menswear and womenswear. It uses three categories, and the third one is Don't Care.
That matters practically rather than only philosophically. A lot of what we stock is cut generously and sized in a way that means the label on the rail is close to irrelevant — worth knowing before you order, because it changes how you pick a size. If you like a piece and it's listed under a category you weren't expecting, that's the brand working as intended rather than a mistake.
Where it's made
Aries says the large majority of its production is in Italy, that it makes in small quantities to order, and that it works with local factories to keep traditional techniques going. Prantera's own interest in hand dyeing, printing and hand-finishing runs through it.
We'd rather put that in the brand's words than our own, because we haven't been to the factories. What we can say is that the pieces don't feel mass-produced, and the graphics — which are Purcell's side of the partnership — are printed rather than applied, which is why they age the way they do.
Who it's worked with
Collaborations have run from New Balance and Clarks to Fila, Arsenal, Havana Club and the artist Jeremy Deller. Campaigns have been shot by David Sims and Juergen Teller. In 2025 Rizzoli published a 400-page book on the first fifteen years, which tells you something about how seriously the brand is now taken by people who don't wear streetwear.
The current range is in our Aries collection.
Written by Ruby Tomlinson
