One Last Masterclass in Quiet Technicalwear
HYKE and The North Face are closing their on-off partnership with a collection of sharply tailored uniforms for survival.
HYKE, the Japanese label rooted in military reinterpretation, and The North Face, the outdoor giant that turned alpine gear into streetwear currency, have spent the past four seasons translating uniforms into technical elegance. From mountain shells to nautical codes, their partnership has been a conversation between function and formality, quiet utility and quiet luxury.
That instinct comes from HYKE’s roots. The brand's co-founders, Hideaki Yoshihara and Yukiko Ode, once ran a vintage shop filled with French sailor pants and American flight jackets, and that archive still shapes their work. The palette, drawn from desert sand and shadow, sets the tone for silhouettes that move between hard and soft, tactical and ceremonial.
A GORE-TEX PRO shell holds its form like a field jacket, while perfectly fitted pleated skirts ripple with delicacy.
As HYKE’s designers recently told Highsnobiety in an exclusive interview, “We’ve been conscious of using high-quality fabrics that are crisp and comfortable without clinging to the skin.” That dual focus on function and meticulous elegance is what gives the collection its formality, technical garments that carry themselves ceremoniously.
“HYKE’s whole project is reimagining garments designed for pure utility as wardrobes of extreme elegance,” the designers added in the same conversation.
In this final The North Face collection, military fatigue pants are recast as six-pocket trail trousers, fleece takes on the sculptural weight of tailoring, and shock-absorbing trail shoes are offered in a stark white-and-black colorway.
The North Face provides the credibility of its patented technology, HYKE answers with restraint and precision, and together they form a dialogue neither could write alone.
Like any strong finale, this collection does not expand the story, but distills it.
What remains is a wardrobe built to withstand both the elements and the passage of time, pieces so simple and well-made that even if HYKE x The North Face returns years from now, you will not feel the FOMO. These will still look good then.
And don't be surprised if this collaboration does suddenly reappear, The North Face and HYKE did go on a half-decade hiatus before surfacing with this four-season-long partnership.
As Yoshihara and Ode told us, the goal has always been to create “the perfect modern wardrobe, both obviously urbane and quite useful.”
Highsnobiety has affiliate marketing partnerships, which means we may receive a commission from your purchase. Want to shop the products our editors actually love? Visit the HS Style Guide for recs on all things fashion, footwear, and beauty.
