Welcome to the Arc'teryx Museum, where GORE-TEX layering pieces are art.
If there’s one thing that Arc’teryx does better than making weatherproof jackets, it’s celebrating the history and technology behind said jackets. In its SoHo store in New York City, for example, there's already a permanent museum-like display of older, worn Arc'teryx apparel, complete with little description cards explaining how they fit within the Canadian company's legacy.
But, in Tokyo, Arc'teryx is celebrating itself even further with a museum. The Arc'teryx museum, to be specific.
This comes on the heels of the very successful "Arc'hives" event last November, where Japanese Arc’teryx fans could see 40 pieces of vintage apparel from the in-house Arc'teryx archive and learn about the evolution of the tech that goes into it all.
Now, Arc’teryx has solicited a host of older jackets and even some classic clothing from its customers to put on display at the first-ever official Arc’teryx museum, hosted on Shibuya's trendy Cat Street from from April 20 until May 5.
Products from the ‘90s onwards will be on display throughout three whole floors, making it sound like a pretty extravagant affair.
Inside, it’s all about how Arc’teryx's technical adventure gear has evolved and how consumers havee themselves evolved alongside Arc, which itself has grown from a manufacturer of staple hiking gear into a major fashion brand that even makes its own in-house sneakers, haters be damned.
As well as restaurant owners; late last year, the Vancouver-born company opened up the Beta cafe in Osaka, so-named for its popular (and often GORE-TEX-lined) shell jacket, and housed inside a spacious new flagship store. There, it serves food and beverages like fancy hot dogs and specialty drinks.
Not very Arc'teryx, maybe, but very Japanese and very much part of the brand's purposeful push into the APAC region as a whole, part of a greater push from parent company Amer Sports.
Hopefully they’ll be serving the same sort of refreshments at the museum this spring, though there's sadly no information about refreshments on the Arc'teryx museum's website.
