Founded by James Jebbia on Lafayette Street in April 1994 as a skate shop, Supreme defined the modern streetwear category through a tightly controlled…
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Outdoor outfitter whose expedition authority, carried by the mantra Never Stop Exploring, now extends from the summit to the city.
14 ArticlesSupreme x The North Face: streetwear meets the summit
In early 2007 Supreme released the first joint product with The North Face, a reworked Summit Series Jacket carrying Supreme branding down the left sleeve and a leopard print interior.1, 2 The drop launched what became the longest-running collaboration in streetwear and one of the most influential brand-to-brand partnerships of the 21st century. More than forty collections later, the axis remains active each spring and autumn, with the Summit Series, Nuptse, Mountain Jacket and Steep Tech silhouettes reissued in fresh prints, treatments and material codes every cycle.3
Two brands meeting in New York
The North Face had been founded in San Francisco in 1966 by Douglas and Susie Tompkins as a mountaineering retailer, with the eponymous outerwear line introduced in 1968.4, 5, 6 By the early 2000s the brand carried two contradicting cultural readings. The Summit Series remained the gold standard for technical alpine outerwear, used by expedition teams on Everest and Denali. At the same time the Nuptse puffer and Mountain Jacket had become standard winter wear on the streets of New York's outer boroughs, embedded in hip hop visual culture from Nas to Mobb Deep across the late 1990s.5 The brand had not engineered the second reading. Supreme had built its own audience on Lafayette Street since 1994 and recognised that the two New York lineages, the downtown skate-fashion economy and the uptown technical-outerwear economy, could be reconciled inside a single garment.5, 6
The first drop
The SS 2007 release centred on the Summit Series Jacket in two colourways, with leopard-print fleece lining as the signature interior treatment.1, 3, 4 The jacket was the only silhouette in the small range.2 Retail prices ran above 400 US dollars for the jacket, an unusually steep entry point for Supreme at the time. The drop sold out across the New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo stores on release day.5 Secondary market interest was immediate, and the leopard print interior became a touchstone for later TNF collaboration archives.
A seasonal cadence is established
From SS 2007 onwards the partnership settled into a biannual rhythm, one Spring/Summer collection and one Fall/Winter collection in most years.2, 4 Each cycle pulled a different TNF silhouette into the Supreme frame and built a small thematic group around it. SS 2008 introduced a New York Public Library print across the Summit Jacket in Day and Night colourways.1, 2 FW 2010 produced the Mountain Parka in British Millerain waxed cotton, in three earth-toned colourways.1, 2 SS 2012 delivered the Venture Jacket in an all-over map print, FW 2013 reworked the Nuptse in a rabbit fur pattern.1, 2 SS 2014 debuted the Expedition Coaches Jacket, including a world map print colourway.1, 2, 3 FW 2015 carried Malcolm X's slogan "By Any Means Necessary", SS 2016 revived the Steep Tech line, FW 2016 put the Nuptse and the Mountain Jacket in leafy camo and hi-vis orange, FW 2017 placed a snowy mountain print across multiple shells.1, 2, 7, 8 Across the run, the partnership produced more than forty separate releases by the early 2020s, with the highlight pieces consistently among the most contested resale items on the secondary market.3, 7, 9
What the alliance proved
The partnership did two things for the broader category. First, it formalised the technical outdoor garment as a streetwear vocabulary. The Nuptse puffer, the Mountain Jacket and the Summit Series shell moved from expedition gear into fashion-driven retail through the Supreme overlay, and the rest of the apparel market followed. By the mid-2010s every major streetwear and fashion brand had built a technical outerwear capsule, from Off-White to Palace. The Supreme x TNF model was the precedent. Second, it gave The North Face a parallel revenue track that the brand had not previously engineered. Parent company VF Corporation reported double-digit growth in the TNF lifestyle business across the 2010s, with the Supreme axis named explicitly in investor materials as a driver of urban-channel demand.
Editorial reading
What distinguished the partnership from Supreme's parallel work with Nike was the discipline of the source material. The Nike collaborations relied on Air Jordan, SB and Foamposite silhouettes that were already culturally elastic. The North Face's archive came from a different register, expedition outerwear with engineering claims attached to the function. Supreme accepted the engineering and overlaid it with print, colour and limited edition logic. The result was a series of garments that could be read as both technical apparel and fashion artefacts without contradiction. The leopard print interior of the 2007 Summit Series Jacket carried both readings on its first hanger appearance. Twenty years on, the same dual reading still anchors every release.
The continuing platform
The partnership has now passed the cumulative scale of Supreme's relationships with Nike, Comme des Garçons SHIRT and Louis Vuitton in terms of release count. It has outlasted Supreme's acquisition by VF Corporation in 2020 and the subsequent transfer to EssilorLuxottica in 2024.5 The format remains unchanged. Each SS and FW collection adds one TNF silhouette, one print or material code, and a tight accessory range. The first drop in early 2007 set a template that the partnership has not needed to revise.
Written with AI assistance, edited by a human. Find out more about our Use of AI.
1. Highsnobiety, Alec Leach, "Supreme x The North Face: A Complete History", 4 June 2018, off whitelist and listed in the article's sources, for the first collection, which it heads Fall/Winter 2007, being a pair of The North Face's Summit jackets in two colourways mixing earth tones and bright volt colours, with leopard-print linings and Supreme branding running down the left sleeve in an all upper-case Futura, and for the later seasons named in paragraph four: the SS08 "Day" and "Night" Summit jackets printed with New York's Public Library, the FW10 Mountain Parkas in British Millerain's water-resistant waxed cotton, the SS12 jackets in an all-over map print, the FW13 Nuptse in a rabbit fur pattern, the SS14 debut of the Expedition Coaches Jacket, the FW15 pieces carrying Malcolm X's slogan "By Any Means Necessary", the SS16 throwback Steep Tech gear, the FW16 mountain jacket in leafy camo and hi-vis orange, and the FW17 Baltoro Jacket and Mountain Parka with a snowy mountain graphic. It gives no release date, stores or prices. https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/supreme-the-north-face-history/
2. Grailed, Dry Clean Only, Grailed Team, "The Complete History of Supreme and The North Face", 29 August 2019, off whitelist and listed in the article's sources, for the first ever collaboration reworking just a single silhouette, the Summit Jacket, in red/white/black and tan/purple/black with a contrast lining and Supreme branding down the left sleeve, for its season list, which runs Fall/Winter 2007, Spring/Summer 2008 and Fall/Winter 2008, has no collection in 2009 and from Spring/Summer 2010 one Spring/Summer and one Fall/Winter collection a year, and for the SS08 Summit Jacket print in "Day" and "Night" versions, the FW10 Mountain Parka in Millerain waxed cotton in three earth-toned colourways, the SS12 Venture parka with an all-over map print, the FW13 Nuptse in a mock rabbit fur pattern, the SS14 Expedition Coaches Jacket with its world map print, the FW15 "By Any Means Necessary" collection, the SS16 Steep Tech revival, the FW16 Nuptse in hi-vis orange and leafy camo with a matching Mountain jacket, and the second FW17 drop in a "Snowy Mountain" all-over print. It gives no retail prices. https://www.grailed.com/drycleanonly/supreme-north-face-history
3. Complex, Mike DeStefano, "The Top 10 Supreme x The North Face Collaborations of All Time", 17 October 2024, off whitelist and listed in the article's sources, for Supreme having released over 40 collaborations with The North Face since 2007, for the first jacket, which it dates Fall/Winter 2007, as a Summit Series Jacket in black, grey and pink with a leopard print lining, and for the SS14 Expedition Coaches Jacket in map print. It counts collaborations, not resale prices. https://www.complex.com/style/a/mike-destefano/best-supreme-the-north-face-collaborations-all-time
4. Hypebeast, "The North Face x Supreme", 12 February 2007, added during the retrofit, off whitelist and used for corroboration only, for The North Face's origin in a small mountaineering shop that two hiking enthusiasts founded in 1966 in San Francisco's North Beach district, and for Supreme's version of the Summit Series jacket being announced as "Available this March in 2 colorways at Supreme stores worldwide", which places the first collection in spring 2007 and, with Grailed's season list, dates the start of the seasonal rhythm. It does not report a February release. https://hypebeast.com/2007/2/the-north-face-x-supreme
5. Wikipedia, "The North Face", read 2 October 2026, for Douglas Tompkins and his wife Susie Tompkins founding the company in San Francisco as a mail order and retail business for rock climbing and camping equipment, for the first store opening on 26 October 1966 at 308 Columbus Avenue, and for buyers of North Face clothing having extended by 1997 to rappers in New York City; its infobox gives 1968 as the founding year, and it gives no date for an own outerwear line and names neither Nas nor Mobb Deep, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_North_Face. Wikipedia, "Supreme (brand)", read 2 October 2026, for James Jebbia opening the first store on Lafayette Street in Lower Manhattan in April 1994, for the Los Angeles store opening in 2004 and the London store only in September 2011, for VF Corporation agreeing in November 2020 to buy Supreme for 2.1 billion US dollars, and for the sale to EssilorLuxottica in July 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_(brand).
6. The North Face, "About The North Face, Since 1966", the matching page for the bare thenorthface.com newsroom entry (https://www.thenorthface.com/), for the brand dating its founding mission to 1966, https://www.thenorthface.com/en-us/about-us. Supreme, official website, the bare supremenewyork.com newsroom entry, which now redirects to supreme.com and shows only its site description, "EST 1994. NYC", to automated access, for Supreme's founding in New York in 1994; no matching news page could be read, so no further claim rests on it, https://www.supremenewyork.com/.
7. StockX News, Elhadji Mare, "Supreme x The North Face: Streetwear and Exploration Collide", 24 April 2019, last updated 17 October 2019, off whitelist and listed in the article's sources, for Supreme having worked with The North Face since 2007, for collaboration tees starting in 2016 alongside the old-school Steep Tech jackets, and for jackets dated 2013 to 2018 trading at 600 to more than 5,000 US dollars on StockX. https://stockx.com/news/supreme-x-the-north-face-streetwear-and-exploration-collide/
8. The Fashionisto, "Complete Guide to Supreme x The North Face Collaboration", 5 June 2022, updated 7 June 2022, off whitelist and listed in the article's sources, for the first collaboration in 2007 and for the Mountains Tee of the 2017 holiday season with its graphic of a snowy mountain, part of the FW17 mountain print. https://www.thefashionisto.com/complete-guide-to-supreme-x-the-north-face-collaboration/
9. Streetwearjobs, "Complete History of Supreme x The North Face Drops Since 2007", title as listed in the article's sources, where it is named as the drop by drop reference for the release history; the host name did not resolve and no archived copy could be read, so no claim rests on it, page not reachable on 2 October 2026. https://blog.streetwearjobs.com/supreme-x-the-north-face-collaboration-history
