You Can't Buy Virgil Abloh & Drake's Matching Arc'teryx Jackets, Unless You're in the Army
Yesterday, Nike's all-star roster of collaborators converged in New York City for a presentation of the Swoosh's biggest 2020 innovations.
Sitting front row, we spotted the likes of (take a deep breath) Hiroshi Fujiwara, Travis Scott, Errolson Hugh, Tom Sachs, Yoon Ahn, Matthew Williams, Martine Rose, Rosalía, Simon Porte Jacquemus, G-Dragon, Stéphane Ashpool, Edison Chen, Virgil Abloh and Drake. The likelihood of seeing all these people in the same room is slim to none, so it made for an awesome squad photo.
Drake and Virgil came through matchy-matchy with camouflage jackets from Arc'teryx LEAF. The model in question appears to be the Alpha Jacket LT Gen 2 Multicam, priced at $999 CAD (approx $750 USD). You literally can't buy LEAF unless you're a cop. A b2b sub-brand of Arc'teryx, LEAF is an acronym that stands for Law Enforcement & Armed Forces, and they provide tactical gear for the Canadian military, as well as police forces.
Offering product categories like Combat Uniforms, Wet Weather Protection and Load Carriage Equipment, LEAF does have a website that requires a corporate account number and password to log in. The brand's homepage notes that LEAF is "built to handle the harshest of outdoor environments."
Virgil has been rocking a ton of mainline Arc'teryx (Dead bird, as dubbed by aficionados due to the brand's logo of an Archaeopteryx lithographica) recently as well, and in Paris he took a bow after his Louis Vuitton show wearing the Thalassa colorway of Arc'teryx's Alpha SV jacket, an $800 GORE-TEX shell made for severe alpine conditions. Only days after, he posted a pair of Arc'teryx snow pants he was rocking while snowboarding.
Is something brewing between Virgil and Arc'teryx? We kind of hope so.