The story behind Virgil Abloh's new Circoloco capsule collection

One of the most notorious clubs on the party Island of Ibiza has since the late 90’s been the club DC-10 and especially the Circoloco nights, who have lived under their underground decree of "No Soul for Sale" from its infancy to the world wide recognistion it has today. Virgil Abloh recently teased a capsule collection dedicated to the legendary nights so we wanted to give you the story behind the club and its fabled events to help you understand why the hyped designer chose a club night to dedicate a collection too.

The infamous Circoloco nights were started in July 1999 by two Italian promoters, Andrea Pelino and Antonio who met while vacationing on Ibiza and decided to start an after-hours night to carry on after the 24 hours Sunday sessions at Space had ended. The club which is housed in a former airplane hanger located in a converted finca off the end of the airport runway on the south-east side of the island took its name from one of the many DC-10 aircraft that would carry partygoers to the island. The event provided a space for the most hardcore ravers, who were in no mood for sleep, to continue their antics far into the Monday day and evenings. To begin with, the duo programmed mainly non-mainstream European DJs, based solely on the premise of playing really good music. The concept took off and as awareness of the night grew so did the acts that wanted to play there, and soon artists such as Danny Tenaglia, Sasha, Steve Lawler and Pete Tong were offering to play the club for free.

By 2002 the international dance press had taken note, and the clubs reputation grew rapidly along with the resurgence of minimal techno, with many of the main players of the genre being residents at the club, among them, acts such as Tania Vulcano, Luciano, Ricardo Villalobos, Cirillo, Loco Dice, and Jose De Divina, and soon also truly high profile acts like Richard Hawtin, Josh Wink, Magda, and Dinky were attracted to the club. DC-10 on its own became a large part of instigating the wider birth of the minimal techno sound that saw envelop Europe in the second part of the 2000’s and still resonates until this day.

A large part of DC-10’s success was that unlike many of the other super clubs on the island, like Space, Amnesia, Privilege Ibiza, and Pacha, which had taken on a very glossy and corporate identity towards clubbing. DC-10 and particularly the Circoloco nights, maintained a much more underground feel, not only in look but most importantly in the music being played, creating an atmosphere much closer to classic warehouse raves from the acid house era compared to the polished rave factories of the others, and gained a reputation for its hedonistic outlook and attitude. 

As is too often the case with all things good, the club started seeing legal difficulties in 2007, and in October of 2008, the venue was shut down by the Spanish authorities. The grievance mainly centered around the issue of the clubs license only allowed a total 65 people to enter the club, which it quite regularly exceeded with its approximate 1500 person capacity, and in 2009 the club had received fines in excess of 300’000 euro. After being closed for over a year, DC-10 triumphantly re-opened with its Circoloco nights every Monday and Pandemonium on Fridays, and in 2017 DC-10 was nominated for Club of the Year at the Electronic Music Awards.

In 2015 the legendary sound of the Circoloco nights even spread overseas and opened up a night in Japan, Tokyo, at a park often used for raves. At this point Circoloco was one of the most talked about Ibiza nights worldwide and pretty much every notable name in house and techno has played one of its night, including Virgil Abloh who has DJ’d the venue a number of times. It's so legendary that Virgil created a special capsule to celebrate its incredible party history. The collection, from what we have gathered, won't be up for public release, at least not yet, so to truly know what it's all about we recommend you hop on down to the island and experience it all first hand!