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In fashion, collaboration often arrives as excess. More logos, more pieces, more noise, more urgency. The North Faceand eYe JUNYA WATANABE MAN seem to be moving in the opposite direction.
Nine years after the two first worked together, the outdoor giant and Junya Watanabe’s secondary line return with a collaboration made of just two pieces. That restraint feels almost radical now. In an industry where partnerships appear and disappear almost daily, this one chooses precision over volume, treating the garment itself as the whole statement.
The first piece is the Tech Vest Mountain Jacket, a reinterpretation of The North Face’s classic Mountain Jacket. Here, Watanabe inserts one of his signature moves: fusion. A vest is sewn directly onto the jacket’s structure, creating a hybrid object that keeps the logic of both garments while turning them into something new.
That kind of construction sits at the heart of Watanabe’s design language. For decades, he has worked by taking familiar clothing systems apart and recombining them: workwear, military garments, tailoring, sportswear, technical fabrics. The result is rarely loud in the obvious sense, but it is deeply engineered. The clothes feel like puzzles solved by someone who understands exactly where function and strangeness can meet.
The second piece moves through another menswear archetype: the MA-1 bomber. Few silhouettes have travelled as far through fashion history, from military utility to youth subculture, streetwear, luxury, and everyday uniform. In this version, the bomber is rebuilt through references to workwear and military design, two languages that both The North Face and Watanabe know how to handle without turning them into costume.
The collection is available now through The North Face’s online store.
Photos: The North Face