For those of you that don’t know, Engineered Garments is a New York City based fashion brand, created and realized by Japanese designer Daiki Suzuki. In 1999, Suzuki was a New York resident working under Keizo Shimizu, founder of the brand Nepenthes, and the Engineered Garments label operated under Shimizu’s brand as smaller collections and single pieces. It wasn’t until 2002 that Suzuki was able to launch his own full length Engineered Garments line. Heavily inspired by American style that he’s loved since his teen years, Suzuki has been able to produce quality workwear and leisure clothing products that utilize the finest of fabrics to truly live up to the name “Engineered Garments”.
Now this collab with Uniqlo is awesome for a multitude of reasons, for me personally, #1 is the price. As someone who’s had my eye on Engineered Garments recently, I’ve been hoping to get some some of that “Japanese Americana” style for myself, but hoping is the key word here. Engineered Garments pieces typically go for $250+ and those are for things as simple as button up shirts. The prices for the Uniqlo collab are insane in comparison, with fleece pullovers going for $20, and $40 for a fleece long sleeve jacket. Very similar to PacSun’s Fear of God ESSENTIALS line, it’s high grade fashion made more accessible to the common consumer.
Reason #2 for why this collab is great has to be the quality. It’s Engineered Garments, you know it’s gonna be good, but its’ GOOD good. I made sure to get my behind to a Uniqlo yesterday when I found out about this collab through someone’s Instagram story. I’m not the only one who was making sure to rush down to Uniqlo when they heard about this either; I spoke to a fellow shopper when I got there who told me he literally ran to Uniqlo after work to get one of the pieces (that guy also walked out with the last fleece long sleeve jacket, so I had unfortunately gotten there just a tad bit too late). I ended up buying the fleece pullover, and I must say that as I am wearing it typing this article, I LOVE it. The fleece pullover is extremely soft and comfortable, and it’s very light. However, despite how light on the body it feels it is SUPER warm, so much so that when I was trying it on in the fitting rooms I was nearly sweating with a T-shirt on under it.
The third reason this collab was awesome is definitely because it was with Uniqlo. Uniqlo does a fantastic job on collaborations with bigger fashion houses, so this is nothing new for them. Before writing this article I thought to myself “man, a Uniqlo x UNDERCOVER collab would be awesome, and super fitting” and as I’m doing my research, turns out it already exists. Uniqlo has also collaborated with JW Anderson, producing a spring 2018 collection that I personally enjoyed a lot, being a proud owner of a couple of the pieces. Everyone is also familiar with their countless collaborations with famous artist and graffiti writer KAWS, and those collabs have almost always been a grand slam. Uniqlo has a unique (pun-intended) history of collaborations, most of which are just as amazing in quality and style as they are in name. The brand has an interesting way of making the work of high fashion designers and popular artists accessible for the average buyer, but does so in a way that preserves the style and prestige of their collaborators in a way to appeal to the more fashion savvy consumer as well.
If you haven’t already, I suggest you get to the nearest Uniqlo ASAP if you hope to get your hands on some of the pieces, because they’re going fast.
