The North Face is no stranger to collaborations. However, with its debut collection with the Jun Takahashi-founded fashion label Undercover, the outdoor brand was challenged unlike ever before.
“We’ve never done something so technical in the collab space,” David Whetstone, The North Face design director for global collaborations and energy, told FN. “Generally, all of the products on the apparel side are built to the same specifications as our best-in-class Summit Series products but distorted — silhouettes are distorted, functionality is distorted. The same with footwear. We’re bringing in things like Vibram outsoles and other true functional things, but through that lifestyle lens.”
He continued, “Undercover certainly pushed, they wanted to create something new. Every piece in the collection is a ground up style. There was no existing styles in color-ups. It is all completely new creations.”
Watch on FN
The collection, dubbed “Soukuu,” features reimagined classic footwear and apparel selections from The North Face. The range, according to The North Face, “embodies a free spirit and an empowering ‘search of emptiness.'” Further explaining the inspiration, The North Face said the collection was “guided by the quiet confidence of nature” and “was born from the balance of calm and chaos.”
There are two footwear selections in the collaborative effort. One of the looks is a reimagined iteration of the Glenclyffe, a look that offers protection, support and versatility in the silhouette of a sneaker.
“The Glenclyff is an inline style for us, it looks like an approach shoe. But Undercover created a completely new upper. We’ve never done a new upper in the collab space before, so this was a big moment for us,” Whetstone said.
The other silhouette in the collection is the collaborative Down Bootie, a cozy and technical style typically worn after an excursion.
“We brought in Cloud Down, which was always only in apparel until this moment. The Cloud Down is intermittent baffles so you don’t have stitch lines all the way through, and the intermittent baffles eliminates cold spots so you don’t have areas where there’s not a lot of down packed,” Whetstone said.
Aside from footwear, the collection includes several apparel selections from its pinnacle Summit Series and Advanced Mountain Kit Performance Products ranges. Pieces include the Nuptse Down Jacket, the 50/50 Mountain Jacket, the 50/50 Down Pant, the Futurefleece Crew, the Futurefleece Pant and more.
“They were able to bring that really fashion forward eye to the collection,” said The North Face global product manager of performance Laura Akita. “Jun, he’s got a really playful way of working with material, working with silhouette and reimagining things. You see that punk undercurrent in a lot of his work where he just is able to really understand the innate qualities in a garment, in its construction, and then work to exploit those and turn them on their heads.”
The pieces are made with top proprietary tech from The North Face, including the aforementioned Cloud Down, as well as Futurefleece and Dotknit.
“Something you can see come to life in this collection is just a completely different way of thinking about all the stuff that we already do. We make apparel, we’ve been doing this for decades now, and it’s easy to get relatively narrow in your focus of how could something come to life, how could this be utilized,” Akita said. “Being able to reimagine all of our materials in a completely different way for either a different consumer or a different mentality for that consumer in their daily life is really cool. It really highlights the way that the materials can be applicable for a wide swath of people.”
The North Face x Undercover “Soukuu” collection arrives Oct. 24 for XPLR Pass members via Thenorthface.com. Also, the range will be available at select The North Face stores in the U.S. and internationally.
