The History Between Junya Watanabe MAN and C.P. Company
The funny thing about Junya Watanabe MAN and C.P. Company partnering up for a collaborative parka jacket launch is its newness. C.P Company founded ‘Chester Perry’ in 1971 while Junya Watanabe Man launched in 2002. Both pioneered casual-wear through subtle innovations in the men's wardrobe realm called classics. What makes this collaboration significant is the historic trademarks revolving comparatively between them. So, what took so long?
In 2017, Junya Watanabe MAN celebrated its 15-year anniversary with a collection that tinkered with the Watanabe MAN fundamental principle — collaboration. From the very first collection (the ‘love letters’ show, a menswear classic), Junya Watanabe MAN ushered in a collaborative spirit with Levis engineered denim jackets and trousers. Watanabe MAN then became an incubator to define our 21st century norm of ‘branded partnerships’ using Lewis Leathers (S/S 03), North Face (A/W 05), Lacoste (S/S 07), Vanson and Barbour (incredible A/W 07), Brooks Brothers (S/S 09) and Baracuta (A/W 09) in his founding first decade.
This period coalesced into ‘Junya MAN remixes’ from 2011 to 2023, where ideas and collaborators became house historical references. So when we saw Carhartt in 2017, you recalled familiar friends from 2014’s resort hunting collection, or perhaps that 2012 better farms and gardens show. They felt like the Carhartt collaboration that came before, but they weren’t. This is the Junya Watanabe MAN 22-year fever dream. God bless it.
C.P. Company thrives with a similar tag team spirit. Their collaborations are a bit more recent with modern day sportswear titans Palace and Patta; industry hallmarks Armani and Adidas; even musicians Kano and Sergio Pizzorno. Design polymath Aitor Throup famously reworked C.P.’s 'Mille Miglia' goggle jacket in 2009 — the first of the goggle-hooded jackets originally created by founder Massimo Osti in 1988 — giving a vintage staple contemporary resonance, particularly with Slowthai, Skepta, Stormzy and Rejjie Snow. Osti’s original idea behind C.P. Company was to provide everlasting practical solutions to everyday needs. This too connects C.P. to Watanabe MAN as Junya Watanabe’s design pragmatism offers up a solid, stable masculine core.
The new collaboration between Junya Watanabe MAN and C.P. Company includes a single item. One parka in two styles. It is an item that unifies both worlds of fashion and style. The parka reflects C.P. Company’s counter-cultural history. British lads in the early 80s weaponised C.P. as a tool for rebellion against street style signatures from the Paninaro, their Italian, hypebeast-adjacent counterparts. This history within English subculture speaks not only to Liverpool-born artist Mark Leckey’s brilliance, but to Junya Watanabe’s own undying love of British punk, tailoring and eccentricity.
Lastly, fashion's historical dimension here is obvious. C.P. Company, under sportswear soothsayer Carlo Rivetti’s ownership at this point, designed the transformables jacket for S/S 99. Its design concept was explained clearly: coat-meets-tent. This premise not only aligns with Junya MAN’s own transformable collections (S/S 04 and S/S 19 limitless pockets shows). Of more significance, it marries universes to founders. Massimo Osti philosophy twists into Watanabe company founder Rei Kawakubo’s, by way of her earthquake ’Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body’ collection for Comme des Garçons.
The Junya Watanabe MAN and C.P. Company 2-piece collaborative launch attached the practical to the fashionable in a much bigger, much odder way. Who knew a simple parka product release could contain such resonant, magical history constructed beneath the surface!
Junya Watanabe MAN x C.P. Company is available now at Dover Street Market and on the DSML E-SHOP.