For Måneskin’s Damiano David, a New Solo Career and a Fresh Look to Go With It

Damiano David in the “Born With a Broken Heart” video, styled by Michele Potenza, in a Canali Suit and Giuseppe Zanotti shoes.

Photo: Tanima Mehrotra / Courtesy of Arista Recordings

In “Silverlines” David wears a strong-shouldered cropped jacket with high-waisted pants, a thin tie, his new-ish mustache, and what was known back in the day as a co-respondent shoe. “We wanted something that matched the song,” David said. “The song is very epic…so the suit needed to kind of match this energy, but without being too fancy or crazy.” In “Born With a Broken Heart,” the look is Hollywood casual: khakis, white shirt with sleeves rolled up, laced shoes. Both videos deal with performances, in keeping with David’s newfound interest in Broadway musicals. He also reports having “had a very intense emotional reaction watching The Greatest Showman…watching it, I felt like everything is possible. And I remember saying to my girlfriend, this makes me dream. And I started crying, crying, crying, crying.”

Song titles like “Born With a Broken Heart” and “The Bruise” (a song, David says, that was written “while I was falling in love with the person I’m with today,) might suggest struggle, and indeed, as the musician states, “the urge to write the album came from this really strong necessity of just sharing my thoughts with the world because it was becoming kind of a flat line emotionally.” Arriving in LA, sans entourage, and with no support system was scary at first, but David soon discovered it to be a land of opportunity. As in the American dream? “I don’t think it’s because of America, it’s because I was in a place that is not home for me, and I was alone,” he explained. “I found myself again because I had none of the demands that I usually had… I came with a dream and I kind of made it happen. So yeah, it was the land of dreams.”