OAMC Continues Exploring Japan With WTAPS
If ever there was a single OAMC piece that represented the entire brand, it'd have to be the Peacemaker line of military liner jackets. An obvious choice, sure, but the only logical one. Hence why WTAPS' debut collaboration with Luke Meier's nearly decade-old fashion label centers singularly around that one garment.
OAMC rarely toils outside of its own zone — though it's shown during Paris Fashion Week over the years and has a relatively large base of stockists, OAMC is still kind of under the radar. That works just fine for Meier, who is aligned with wife Lucie on taking a similarly single-minded, understated approach to designing for Jil Sander.
While Jil Sander is clearly minimalist luxury, though, OAMC isn't so easily categorizable. It's a mélange of Meier's interests, from workwear to militaria to futuristic industrial garb, all united by Italian construction and a sense of inherent functionality.
WTAPS is of a kind. Like other heritage Japanese casualwear brands — Neighborhood, N.HOOLYWOOD, Bounty Hunter — it continues trudging down the trail that founder Tetsu Nishiyama blazed nearly three decades ago, with little interest in acknowledging fleeting trends. That undeviating output has attracted plenty of collaborative partners both big and small, even over the past year alone.
So, OAMC and WTAPS overlap in terms of design ethos but also share some stylistic traits, especially when it comes to militaria. But Nishiyama harnesses a reproduction angle while Meier looks towards the future while streamlining the past.
Makes total sense that they'd partner on a Peacemaker liner jacket, then, upcycling vintage military mid-layers into refreshed, embroidered outerwear.
Meier's former outfit, Supreme, has already cosigned the garment and Nishiyama's fellow Japanese streetwear pioneer, Hiroshi Fujiwara, just unveiled fragment design's take, so why not one more?
As OAMC takes a victory lap in Japan, where it's perhaps even more popular than abroad, WTAPS uses this moment to draw more eyes to its experiential W_Lab flaghip, which will be launching the Peacemaker jackets on October 12. OAMC's website will follow suit.
