We’re all for cross-pollination—hybrids, marriages, unlikely unions that come together to make a new, hopefully great, thing. If you’re lucky and the wind blows in at the right angle, the math might just add up to be more than the sum of its parts. And today is just your lucky day, because Wrangler, the unseatable pioneer of denim’s Big Three, has teamed up with ROA, the Italian indie punks shaking up gorpcore, for a slick capsule we didn’t know we needed.
Workwear and gorpcore already share plenty of DNA. In fact, gorpcore is really just workwear for the outdoorsman. The two style camps are utilitarian to their core (heh), but they don’t cross streams nearly as often as you’d think.
For this collaboration, Wrangler and ROA went all-in, pulling the best of their design chops into five pieces that pull equally from each brand’s chromosomes, including Wrangler’s signature washed denim, re-imagined with in a deep, dark brown with cargo pockets, contrast rivets, and double-knee detailing. The rest of the collection—a boxy cropped hooded jacket, an oversized shirt, a crossbody bag, and a cap—are all built to bring denim to the trails and prove its rugged functionality.
Unlike so many link-ups that amount to little more than logo-slapping, this one actually makes sense. It’s a collaboration we didn’t see coming at all. But it’s one that’s left us thinking, why didn’t it happen sooner?
