The Golden Age of Mountaineering, Remade The North Face Purple Label Way
Though the latest fabric technology is sewn into its clothes, The North Face Purple Label’s collections have a tendency to embody the spirit of previous decades. Sometimes Purple Label revives ‘90s outerwear grails, for instance, other times it infuses traditional preppy styles with mountain-appropriate details.
For Fall/Winter ‘25, the Japan-exclusive line once again delivers an air of nostalgia. And this time, it feels like an ode to the golden age of mountain climbing.
The collection is packed with muted tones offered in technical fabrics like Polartec, Pertex Unlimited, and GORE-TEX.
Plus, silhouettes are built for layering. Its modular uniforms of movement include parkas that slide over fleece mid-layers, utility vests that clip onto cargo jackets, and wide trousers designed to drape cleanly over thermal tights.
It’s outerwear that stacks with intention, engineered to adapt across fickle climates. But it doesn’t end there. Rather, the collection nods squarely to the 1970s mountaineering scene. If you’ve ever gone down the TikTok rabbit hole of alpinism edits and Patagonia-core deep dives, you already know where this is going.
The '70s were peak mountaineering dirtbag energy. It was about being self-reliant, spiritually curious, functional but free. Think Jack Kerouac meets Edmund Hillary with a dash of Zen. Climbers ventured out in wool shirts and sun-faded puffers, wearing earth tones that became neutral with use. It was all about utility, effortlessness, and the kind of cool that wasn’t trying to be.
FW25 taps into that romanticism through its rugged silhouettes, modular functionality, and laid-back fits. It’s a collection built to handle the great outdoors without worrying about looking high-tech. There’s no unnecessarily utilitarian, zipper-covered techwear here.
Where the Japanese label’s point of view really shines is in how it softens the toughness with muted, washed color palettes, oversized layers, and a focus on texture over logos, which turns this functional outerwear into something effortlessly versatile.
You don’t need to climb Yosemite to justify the purchase. The real magic of The North Face Purple Label is how good it looks off the mountain.
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