How Did a Fly-Fishing Label Win Over Both Supreme and Palace?
There’s a particular kind of fatigue in the streetwear space after so many years spent churning out “surprise” luxury drops (or, god forbid, yet another McDonald’s collab). In such an oversaturated space, inspiration can be hard to come by.
So it makes sense that “go big or go home” has been replaced by a far trickier directive: “go niche.” But niche-for-niche’s-sake is its own cliché — the real test isn’t finding an odd or interesting subcultural leader; it’s aligning its energy with your own, authentically.
Luckily, there’s SOUTH2 WEST8. The cult Japanese fishing apparel label founded by Kaname Nagaoka in 2002 has become one of the oddest and most beloved collaborators in fashion — notching collaborations with not one, but two of streetwear’s biggest brands.
Why? Well, chalk it up to the fisher-friendly company’s melding of technical fabrication with utilitarian aesthetics, plus Nagaoka’s love for Tenkara fly fishing, becoming the kind of nerdy lore that instantly attracts, well, everyone. Or maybe it’s that the pastime has major sartorial juice. It’s all the multi-pocket vests, river-ready jackets and parkas, and camo-print — packaged into the most lowkey, minimalist version of fly fishing around.
All these factors add up to one little brand with an outsize impact on the outerwear space. Reebok, Oakley Factory Team, and Brain Dead have also come calling, for good reason. Now, Palace has taken a swing at collaborating, which is particularly notable because S2W8 is one of the few brands to also work with Supreme, Palace's biggest rival.
Its linkups with both streetwear titans makes sense on paper: SOUTH2 WEST8 started as an outfitter for Tenkara fly-fishing enthusiasts and grew into a fully formed clothing label with its own seasonal collections, which is genuinely cool. (SOUTH2 WEST8 is part of the greater Nepenthes brand family, which also includes Needles and Engineered Garments.)
Here, Palace’s selection of co-branded jackets, T-shirts, and track bottoms in a fairly standard camo print takes a more lowkey route compared to, say, the far more maximalist Supreme collection in 2021 — that one gave us kaleidoscopic prints and an actual co-branded Tenkara fishing rod.
But that’s what’s so charming about this cult fishing label that punches far above its weight (because, really, what other brand can land collabs with streetwear’s two biggest brands). Whether a linkup ends up leaning more understated or exaggerated, the inherent coolness of SOUTH2 WEST8 can’t be washed away.
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