Afield Out Enters Jurassic World
“I think the mood, the tone, the survival aspect, the darkness — it all connected really naturally with a lot of the things we love,” says Brian Chor. For the Afield Out founder, the connection between the Santa Ana-based brand and the Jurassic World franchise from Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures wasn’t necessarily all about the dinos and iconic imagery, but about the atmosphere.
While developing the brand’s latest capsule, the Southern California designer spent months revisiting the Jurassic World franchise, digging through decades of imagery, archival illustrations, and iconic scenes that have become part of pop culture. Somewhere between the massive gates, dense landscapes, vintage vehicles, and constant sense of danger, he started to see familiar themes. The world of Jurassic World shared many of the same ideas that have shaped Afield Out from the beginning.
Founded nearly seven years ago, the brand started as a personal project inspired by the outdoors he grew up exploring across SoCal. Childhood trips to countless state parks helped shape his relationship with nature, but the clothing available at the time rarely reflected that experience. Long before outdoor-inspired fashion became a major part of streetwear, Chor created graphics and garments that felt more connected to his interests, blending influences from outdoor culture, music, design, and everyday life into something distinctly his own.
That perspective remains at the heart of the brand today, even as Afield Out has grown from a small garage-run operation into a label punctuated by collabs and carried by some of fashion’s most influential retailers. It also shaped every decision behind the Jurassic World capsule, which approaches the franchise as a fully realized world.
When his friend and former colleague Sara Park first suggested the collaboration, Chor admits he didn’t see it coming. Jurassic World occupies a unique place in culture, an intersection of childhood nostalgia and modern mythology. But the deeper he went into the franchise, the more natural the collaboration felt. And in that unearthing, meditations on survival, vast landscapes, aging machinery, and the constant tension between humanity and the natural world began to reveal itself.
Those ideas became the foundation for the collection’s graphics. During the research process, Chor became especially interested in some of Jurassic’s fiercest dinosaurs, discovering entire communities dedicated to creatures that rarely get the same love as their less threatening counterparts. Their appeal felt like a natural fit for Afield Out’s affinity for darker imagery and subcultures that live slightly outside the mainstream. “There’s a huge cult following around antagonist dinosaurs across sub forums, social media, and niche online communities,” Chor shares. “I think that was a cool thing for us to lean on, and it just made so much sense for the brand as far as vibe and tone. We're like, ’Yeah, let's try to use like the deadliest ones we could find.’”
The collection also pulls heavily from the vehicles that have become synonymous with the Jurassic universe. As a longtime fan of vintage four-wheel drives and overland rigs, Chor kept finding himself drawn back to the franchise’s iconic off-road fleet. Their silhouettes are so recognizable they almost feel like characters themselves. That fascination eventually inspired one of the capsule’s standout graphics, a sketched rear-view mirror framing the film's most recognizable dino, the T.rex, adorned on both a black and white T-shirt with the iconic gates embellishing the front.
Other pieces take cues from archival illustration, including a black and green hoodie that spells out “Jurassic” using reconstructed dinosaur bones. Developed alongside Phoenix-based illustrator and tattoo artist Scott August, the graphics strike a balance between classic franchise iconography and the raw, slightly darker aesthetic that defines Afield Out, which also shines through in the accessories. A camo hat with a dino’s ominous eye and a “no escape” bandana pictured with a broken barbed wire fence and the antagonist creatures round out the collection.
Photographed in the forests of Vancouver, the capsule leans into a palette of black, muted green, and earth tones that echo both Jurassic World’s environments and Afield Out’s longstanding color wheelhouse. The imagery feels incredibly cinematic without veering into costume territory, grounding the collection in a landscape that fits right into the franchise's universe.
Throughout the process, Chor found himself reconnecting not just with the films, but with all the memories that came with them. While working on the collection, he and his wife also welcomed their first child, which gave the project a whole new, more personal meaning. “Being able to share projects and collabs like these with my daughter later, that is going to be really meaningful to me,” the Santa Ana-based designer shares.
In the end, that’s what makes the collaboration feel so natural. What started with a shared love of Jurassic World became something more personal for Chor, bringing together his love of the outdoors, exploration, nostalgia, and now the chance to share those things with his daughter. Rather than simply borrowing from the franchise, Afield Out found its own place within its world, making the collection feel like a genuine meeting of two things Chor has loved for years.
Discover more from the capsule collection here.
