Just In Time For Spring, The Sporty Layering Staple
The coach jacket is an iconic piece of in-field sportswear, gone to bat as a chilled-out streetwear staple over the last several decades. Clean, lightweight, and dependable, the coach jacket conjures respect and admiration like the coach himself. The perfect layering piece for a misty spring morning yelling orders on the pitch, or a breezy skate sesh on the first day of summer. Insulated nylon, neat collar, snap-front design, elastic cuffs, breast logo—the sporty staple is having a moment, so in the resounding words of Friday Night Lights’ Coach Taylor, “Don’t just stand by and let it happen.”
First down is Levi’s—known for consistently producing reasonably-priced, Americana-influenced staples—and their cotton-blend take, a material sub-in which ups the durability factor, while lending textural softness to the traditional wind-breaking nylon classic. This perfect robin’s egg blue is the ultimate spring-beckoning selection.
Keiji Ishizuka and Atsuhiko Mori, the duo behind Wacko Maria, both started out as J-League football players before Mori opened their infamous Tokyo bar, Rock Steady Bar. So while the designers clearly have some credibility in the realm of athletics, they also like to party. From whence was born their unique twist on the coach jacket, a classic black silhouette with the word “DISCO” printed across the back in 70s-inspired bubble-font—sure to have you dancing in the end-zone.
Japanese label N.Hoolywood is notorious for its subdued, vintage-inspired, sportswear-referencing brand of refined basics. Their version on the coach jacket observes an unexpected play, a reworking of the usual nylon into a rich, muted corduroy. The snap-front closure is replaced with a zipper, but the pointed collar and nostalgic shape of the coach’s favorite is maintained. Touchdown!
Here Heron Preston covers Coach in camo, as the field-friendly layer adopts the print from another kind of sport—hunting. Heron’s graphic impulses leave the shirt-jacket staple overgrown with foliage, complete with the designers trademark Cyrillic accent, СТИЛЬ, which kind of looks like the word “coach” but actually means “style.” The designers immediately detectable orange logo-tag at the cuff offers the kind of detailing that sets this piece apart from others in its league.
A sports uniform with self-awareness, Maison Margiela brings its signature subversion to their take, grabbing onto a classic and running with it, rendering it in an electric fluorescent yellow. In place of the usual team or state breast logo, Margiela places a canvas bonded badge with the word “Stereotype,” and its definition, while overtly, playfully labelling the coat by which distinguished member of the team wears it.
THE NEW SNEAKER MUTANTS
Five Variants feat. Nike, Prada, and Margiela
A pandemic has swept the fashion world. A toxic pathogen has been infecting sneakers and the once rather straightforward staple has mutated, morphing into bulging, strange shapes and sizes. The first indication of the outbreak was seen in Balenciaga’s Triple S, with the popularity of its bulbous, 3-soled design spreading like a trend contagion. Now that the mutant sneaker has hit a critical mass, here are five pairs which exhibit how the sneakers of the Gen Z moment are those with the X-Gene.
This isn’t the Dad shoe you recognize from your parent’s mud-room. For Martine Rose’s first Nike collaboration, the young-again Dad sneaker has been exposed to some gamma rays, and he’s taken on a bizarre new shape. It’s the same familiar, paternal athletic-casual look, but something is a little…off. Rose has innovated on an absolute classic of an American sneaker, the Air Monarch, by fitting the leather body of shoe to a sole half its size. The effect is a freakishly unique sneaker that can’t be contained, available in white, bubblegum pink, and black.
Miharayasuhiro’s black & white slip-on sneaker looks a lot like the ubiquitous-yet-timeless Vans checkered slip-on, yet on closer inspection, it’s a deviated rendering. Footwear designer Mihara Yasuhiro found his label in the late-90s, and since then, has consistently presented menswear staples metamorphosing away from expectation. His take on skate-friendly slip-ons look like a comic book illustration of a pair of skate-friendly slip-ons, a perfectly imperfect variant.
Prada’s ever-popular ultra-technical Cloudbust sneaker already feels futuristic, but in this black and slime green colorway it feels more alien than astronaut. The Cloudbust was unleashed in August of 2017—its padded bubble sole and lace-less design now available in over 11 colorways and multiple silhouette permutations.
The Nike React Element 87 was first released in collaboration with streetwear grandpere Jun Takahashi of UNDERCOVER, himself an avid runner. Featuring React foam technology—an original, innovative sole painstakingly developed by Nike chemists—and tonal rubberized detailing resembling nodes for added stability, the React Element 87 is intended to turn its wearer into something of an optimized cyborg. With their sheer, “aurora” green and “volt” blue technical fabric, these sneakers not only look radioactive, but are designed to help you run for your life.
With detailing that mimics hot-glue and duct tape, Margiela’s Fusion sneakers look like they’ve been worn for a century by a roaming immortal undead and then flipped on Grailed. This is of course the intention, Martin Margiela having altogether pioneered the deconstructed, undone look way back in the 90s, (before it became more-or-less normal to dress like the walking dead). The “Fusion” in the title indicates the kind of foraging the shoe represents. Picture this: a zombie apocalypse strikes earth, and you are left to self-assemble some kind of swag from the dreitus that remains.
T.F.T.I 