Only The North Face Purple Label Can Turn Old Outerwear Into Fresh Masterpieces
Japanese independent label nanamica and The North Face Purple Label have answered a question fashion brands battle with daily: what to do with all the scrap fabric?
In the process of turning huge sheets of material into something you can actually wear, there will always be offcuts and odd pieces of fabric that get pushed aside. These can either get thrown in the bin or, like nanamica, you can call up a leading outdoor label and experiment with whatever you have lying around.
In their third upcycling project, the two brands once again pooled together to skilfully craft hybrid outdoor gear from scrap material.
The resulting two products are somewhat Frankensteined together with whatever they could get their hands on.
For example, wide-leg pants utilize the back side of fluffy POLARTEC Fleece together with panels of fabric made for chino pants. The finish of the final product depends on what piece of scrap fleece your pair is made of.
There is also a reversible chore coat to match these pants, made with the same fluffy fleece lining while the front side utilizes bayhead duck cloth.
Unless you’re in Japan, anything from The North Face Purple Label is hard to get your hands on. The brand is an entirely separate entity from The North Face, it is owned by Goldwin which has the exclusive rights to sell The North Face in Japan and South Korea. You can, however, sometimes find it outside of those regions.
By nature of this being an upcycling project, this collection will be especially hard to buy: both products are made in very limited quantities, available from December 13 from both brands’ Japanese stores.
As we’ve seen with other projects, including some using outdoor gear, nanamica and The North Face Purple Label show that upcycling isn’t just a way to reduce waste — it can produce some wonderfully experimental products.
