Nicholas Daley's 13-piece Carhartt WIP collection is more than custom fabrics and artful patchwork. This is a full musical production touring from New York to Paris with events curated by Daley, presenting local musicians alongside close friends. Little wonder this project was two years in the making. 

“The music element is a real joining force between the brands,” Daley tells me from his London studio a week before jetting out to Tokyo for this ten-day Carhartt WIP tour. “In the current age of collaborations, a lot doesn't have that substance behind it. But with this one, it is a real 360-degree collaboration. There are so many elements.”

While they’ve worked together previously on small runs of T-shirts — one raising money for London’s Mangrove Steelband and another for Paris' A-One Records — this is Nicholas Daley and Carhartt WIP’s first full capsule collection. 

A 16-year-old Daley folded Carhartt WIP clothing in the stockroom of a streetwear store.

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A 33-year-old Daley is making Carhartt WIP clothing with his mother.

“Carhartt WIP works with sacai, Palace, all these amazing brands. I asked them if any of those guys ever brought in something their mom had knitted? They said no,” chuckles Daley.

This is quintessential Nicholas Daley, with personal narratives interwoven into clothing that itself is part of greater menswear heritage.

Here, a tartan wool hand-knit by Daley's mom was scanned and printed onto herringbone twill cotton for a Harrington-style jacket with contrast corduroy pockets, making a garment both personal and classic. “The tartan ties into my Scottish ancestry. And I've got my Scottish mum knitting it. You can't really get any more Scottish than that,” says Daley, whose father is of Jamaican descent.

His parents’ influence also appears on a T-shirt. An original flyer from their influential but short-lived Reggae Klub, which opened in 1978 and was one of the first in Scotland, is translated into a large graphic. 

These kinds of personal touches define the collection, out October 22 via Nicholas Daley’s website and the Carhartt WIP app. Daley drew the co-branded logo by hand — which took him an "age," he says — and incorporated his preferred color schemes to more subtly unite the two collaborators. However, he refrained from altering the actual shape of Carhartt WIP's clothes.

“As a designer, it's always a great thing to bring your spin to these design archetypes,” says Daley. “It's about bringing subtle details that speak about my brand. A chore coat is a classic, and you don't need to overhaul it.”

Instead of altering the garments' core DNA, Daley made them his own. Besides updating their details, he introduced his friends, family, and peers into the collaborative mix. Daley cast musicians from his circle in the collection's campaign, for instance, and invited Kuumba International, the Tokyo-based incense experts, to create an exclusive Nicholas Daley x Carhartt WIP stick.

“Nicholas is a real one! I'll always back what he does,” music producer and DJ Mia Koden tells me, one of the artists spotlighted in the campaign. Koden created bespoke mixes for Daley and recently played at his curated stage at GALA festival. “The word 'community' is thrown around a lot these days, but Nicholas really does nurture community.”

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