How MAN-TLE’s Founders Evolve Their Ultra-Tough, Anti-Hype Clothes
Clothing genres bounce off of MAN-TLE like desert wind whipping off an Australian mountain range. The Perth label’s work-tough clothes are somehow both remarkably brawny and quietly brainy, as hardwearing as they are nuanced. This is not reheated workwear. This is the duality of MAN-TLE.
The work-jacket-pant sets, waxed shirts, and nylon coats in MAN-TLE’s R19 collection, debuted earlier this month as part of the Fall/Winter 2025 offering, are comfortable amid a backdrop of shipping containers and freight trucks. Yet they defy blue-collar convention. Shirts wear splashy shibori dye or are cut from a specially developed washable wool. Said workwear set is made from a stark yellow polyester that's quilted, and stitched in the tradition of Korean nubi fabrics. And those are just the obvious distinctions; some of the deeper details might escape even the longtime MAN-TLE customer.
“We always saw MAN-TLE as a singular, evolving body of work. There is repetition but also refinement each time in production,” say cofounders Larz Harry and Aida Kim. “R19 feels like a good progression made up of small additions and revisions. We add new systems and groups of products once we get the elements right.” This is the industrial side of MAN-TLE’s process: hone, perfect, progress. It’s also why MAN-TLE collections often refresh familiar shapes and fabrications rather than abandoning them. Why fix what ain’t broke?
A couple standout bits of newness from R19 are obvious, even if the amount of effort that went into making them isn’t. The first-ever leather iteration of MAN-TLE’s signature full-figured down jacket, for instance, is the result of manufacturing magic sorted out somewhere in the 230 miles between MAN-TLE’s down processor in Mie and lone leather craftsman in Tochigi. And a new iteration of the Jebok Coat, a thick work jacket, demanded a reconsideration of what Harry and Kim call “composite garments.”
“We don’t use separate cloth for linings or pocket bags because, generally, we want the main fabric to be felt at all touch-points,” they say. “The J1 Jebok Coat needed insulation, however. It is a big coverall short-coat with a lining composition we developed using recycled PET wadding and recycled PET liner cloth.” (PET is a polyester typically used in plastic bottles.) “The body is cut from a 400gsm navy moleskin and a 12oz black slub denim, both woven in Okayama.”
A new piece of MAN-TLE knitwear, meanwhile, demanded a whole new mode of production. “There was this idea to produce an Australian-made sweater where the yarn had never left the country,” say Harry and Kim. “After weeks of cold-calling farmers, scourers, spinners and knitters, we were able to map out a supply chain that only barely still exists. For most of the processes we used the only remaining mills in Australia. What resulted was a heavy natural-colored sweater, machine-knitted with Polwarth wool, grown by a flock of sheep owned by one family since 1860.”
The offering is anchored by MAN-TLE’s loosest pants to date. Modestly titled “P8” because they’re the eighth-ever MAN-TLE trouser style, they’re a reflection of both sides of the company’s practice. Their voluminous facade belies the consideration that went into their anatomical pockets and flat-felled seams, making them as much a billboard for thoughtfulness as a serviceable garment. And they look good in the breeze, too.
“We use many stiff and high-density fabrics, but they should work in places like Western Australia where it’s mostly hot and dry,” say Harry and Kim. “Shapes for us have always been about movement of air.”
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.
