The North Face and Gucci

Two archives in one collection

On 22 December 2020, Gucci and The North Face reveal the campaign for their joint collection, three months after first teasing the partnership in September.¹ The collection debuts in a Gucci Pin pop-up store in Beijing on 29 December, and reaches the United States on 6 January 2021.^1,2 WWD describes it as the first time Gucci has worked on "what could be a full-fledged collection with another brand since Michele's arrival as creative director five years ago".¹

The range covers ready-to-wear for men and women, soft accessories, luggage, a gender-neutral hiking boot, and the equipment that only one of the two partners normally makes: tents and sleeping bags.¹ That last detail sets the terms of the partnership. Gucci does not borrow The North Face's look for a fashion season; it enters the outdoor brand's own categories. Opening in Beijing places the collection first in China, ahead of the United States.

The 1970s as common ground

The design starts from The North Face's past rather than its present. According to Dazed, the outerwear "is based on The North Face's original designs from the decade", drawing on Alessandro Michele's well-documented love of the 1970s.³ WWD adds that the colour palette "was inspired by the Seventies and curated from The North Face materials library".¹

The choice gives each partner something the other already values. For Gucci under Michele, the 1970s are a recurring reference. For The North Face, they are the decade of its early packs, tents and sponsored expeditions, from the Ruthsack internal frame backpack of 1969 to the Oval Intention tent of 1975.⁴ Meeting in that decade lets the collaboration read as a shared history, not as a luxury house dressing up in sportswear or an outdoor label borrowing prestige.

The visual identity of the collection says the same thing in a mark. A combined logo places The North Face's three curved lines together with Gucci's green-red-green Web stripe, and appears on a dedicated label.¹ Neither brand's name is subordinated to the other's. The arcs and the stripe are each a primary sign of their owners, and the label shows them side by side as equals.

A campaign set in the outdoors

The campaign is photographed by Daniel Shea in the Alps and follows hikers through mountains and rivers, camping and kayaking.³ Dazed notes a link to the brand's origins in the soundtrack: in the 1970s, when The North Face was a retailer based in Berkeley, California, it shared a factory and storefront next to the practice space of Creedence Clearwater Revival, whose "Bad Moon Rising" accompanies the film.³ SHOWstudio credits Christopher Simmonds as art director and reports a UK launch exclusive to Selfridges in London through January 2021.⁵

The setting is significant for The North Face. The campaign places the clothes in the mountains, the brand's home ground, rather than on the city streets where much of its audience knows them. Even inside a luxury collaboration, the imagery keeps the mountain as the brand's home ground.

Practical details support the outdoor reading. Fashionista reports that the luggage uses ECONYL regenerated nylon, that some pieces use archival fabrics, and that the packaging is recyclable.² The materials keep the collection tied to the standards of an equipment maker, not only to its look.

A documentary about the brand itself

In January 2021 the partners add a documentary directed by the artist Sean Vegezzi and filmed in the Alps, with images ranging from the Dolomites to the Sierra Nevada in California. It features conversations with Michele and with David Whetstone, The North Face's design manager for global collaborations, archives and special projects.⁶ According to FashionNetwork, the film also covers "the underground history of how The North Face, a pinnacle outdoor brand, got adopted in major cities", with cultural figures ranging from the professional climber Nina Williams to the graffiti artist Post AOW.⁶

The inclusion brings the brand's city history into its official story. Its adoption by cities, above all New York in the 1990s, came from the wearers rather than from a campaign.⁷ Here it becomes part of the official story, told in a film made with a luxury house. The street meaning is acknowledged alongside the expedition meaning, and both are treated as heritage.

Whetstone's job title also says something about how the brand now works. A design role dedicated to collaborations and archives shows The North Face treating its own past as a resource to be curated. In the Gucci collection, that resource is the point: the collection draws on the archive and the history rather than on current technology.