Move over Dan Andrews, it looks like The North Face is levelling up in 2021 with a serious dose of high fashion.
Revealed today and dropping later this week, The North Face x Gucci is an enormous fashion-meets-adventure collection that pairs The North Face’s signature puffy down jackets with Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele’s flair for the curious, 70s style canon, and the more adventurous spirit of fashion. Imagine a camping trip in the Alps with a band of well-heeled Studio 54 characters—and, well, you’re pretty much there.
It’s an awesome, but unsurprising pairing with The North Face’s recent rush of popularity with models (Hailey Bieber, Bella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, and Joan Smalls are fans) and Victorian State Premiers alike—but it might just be one of the best collabs to drop this year (big call, we know, we’re only five days in).
In the massive collection are stacks of goose-feather down padded coats, bombers, and vests, bombed in Gucci’s signature 70s palette. Alongside fiery reds, greens, and blues, are bold floral prints created by The North Face and Gucci especially for the collection. Michele has blown out the puffy jacket silhouette too with padded shirts, skirts, and jumpsuits also in the mix.
As well as all that puff, The North Face x Gucci drop also features nylon skirts, shirts, and windbreakers, logo t-shirts, sweats, a fleece jacket, bucket hats, bags, and a gender-neutral hiking boot. We are slightly obsessed with the printed backpacks and belt bags, but collectors and camping-fiends alike will be stoked to know the collection also features equipment, like tents and sleeping bags.
With sustainability front-of-mind for both Gucci and The North Face, the collection is pretty planet-friendly too. Bags are made from ECONYL, fashion's favoured repurposed nylon. Archival fabrics from The North Face feature throughout, giving new life to forgotten prints and colours from the 70s, and packaging for each of the pieces in the collection has been designed in sustainably sourced paper and cardboard that is uncoated and fully recyclable.
While it’s not The North Face’s first flirtation with high fashion (a collab with MM6 Maison Margiela dropped in February 2020), it’s definitely the most ambitious and the most colourful and spirited. And honestly, who says hiking shouldn't be flashy?
The North Face x Gucci will launch in-store in Melbourne from Friday 8 January and in Sydney on Saturday 9 January. The collection is also launching on Pokémon GO and both the Sydney and Melbourne stores will be Gucci PokéStops with three digital items available to collect.
Peep back at the year that was with the best sneaker drops of 2020 (that you can still shop in 2021).
Image credit: Daniel Shea for The North Face x Gucci
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