UNDERCOVER's Toyota Collab Is... Surprisingly Normal
UNDERCOVER has done so many collaborations that a corner of its web store is dedicated specifically to special releases. And, yet, founder Jun Takahashi has never put his stamp on a car, until now. Meet the UNDERCOVER x Toyota Aygo X.
Never heard of Toyota's Aygo X? Me neither (one of the reasons I live in New York is specifically to avoid buying a car), but it's apparently a compact crossover car intended for city use.
The little hatchback, which has received positive praise since its debut in 2022, makes sense as a canvas for UNDERCOVER's experimentation.
For one, Toyota and UNDERCOVER share domestic roots and, for another, tiny cars are a perfect fit for cramped Japanese streets — there may be rednecks in Russia but they just don't have room for pick-em-up trucks in Tokyo.
Even still, a compact car is quite a step up from UNDERCOVER's typical collaborations. Ordinarily, UNDERCOVER dabbles in pop culture references or remixed shoes, but it makes more sense when you see the results: unlike the wild concept cars created for most fashion crossovers, the UNDERCOVER x Toyota Aygo X is basically just a graphic facelift.
Each one of the 5,000 UNDERCOVER Aygo X cars sports a custom grey/black paintjob, red accents, and "CHAOS/BALANCE" roof stickers that riff on a quintessential UNDERCOVER slogan. The results, for better or worse, are so normal that it hardly even looks like an UNDERCOVER collab, especially when you can't see the co-branded trunk.
Toyota describes the resulting vehicle, debuting the same day as UNDERCOVER's Fall/Winter 2023 womenswear fashion show in Paris (which also included a new fragment design collaboration), "anything but your usual car collaboration" but compared to deeper team-ups, it feels pretty straightforward.
It's not like you'd expect UNDERCOVER to put NOS in a car, I suppose, but a vivid graphic treatment might've been a touch more exciting. According to the folks behind the UNDERCOVER Aygo X, though, the palette is key.
“[This] was my first experience working on a car, and with Toyota being such a prestigious and innovative Japanese brand, it came with deep emotional meaning and significance,” UNDERCOVER founder Jun Takahashi said in a statement.
“Fusing together two contradicting elements, or worlds, is exciting for me and both the materials and how we applied the colors differ completely from clothing collaborations. I believe we have a design that is still very much UNDERCOVER while working in harmony with the city. I drive my own car every day and recognize the significance color can have.”
“Fashion design and car design share a lot in common but Jun introduced us to completely new ways of looking at colour, and ideas for how to make more of everyday details to create something more interesting and unexpected,” continued Tadao Mori, Head of Styling Design for Toyota Europe.
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