Mr Porter and Arket link up for first-ever collab

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 15, 2023

Mr Porter and one of H&M Group’s brands launch an interesting collaboration on Wednesday. The luxury menswear e-tailer is teaming up with the Swedish giant’s Arket, the Nordic lifestyle label, in a first-of-its-kind link-up for both brands.

The collection will feature limited edition menswear (but with unisex appeal) and kidswear pieces with that were “inspired by nature”.

Despite it being described as a “capsule”, it’s a fairly extensive offer with 120 pieces available via the Mr Porter and Arket webstores and in selected Arket stores in London, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Paris and Amsterdam.

The two labels said they “worked together across the full collaborative process, from collection development to creative campaign” with “inspiration born out of a shared principle of modernist, bold, and colourful design that embraces nature – important principles for both brands’ global customer base”.

What that means in practice is a bright assortment of “everyday ready to wear staple pieces and accessories”. Included are coats, anoraks, jumpers, T-shirts, trousers, and caps, all “designed for modern living”.

Some 70 pieces are targeted at men with the other 50 being for children, and select pieces being “twinned in design across the collection”.

A proportion of the collections were also created in collaboration with London-based Planet Good Earth. This community project “brings together families through gardening, inspiring them to be part of the worldwide environmental movement”. So there are Planet Good Earth patched graphics on select garments, including “a green fingered ‘good earth, good energy’ character, a Good Earth smiley world cartoon – and a series of animated garden friends”.

Highlights from the menswear offer include a rugby shirt, in both a striped red and orange, and green and yellow, a quilted jacket and matching gilet in lilac, and a mustard, long-sleeved T-shirt with Planet GoodEarth pocket and rear graphic.

Materials are key too in pieces like the blue and green windbreaker in Limonta, “a highly regarded, premium technical fabric made in Italy”.

Accessories include a multicoloured five-panel cap, a lilac and green beanie and two colour-block ribbed rugby socks.

The styles and colours are echoed in the kidswear, which includes a blue fleece vest with orange piping and hooded towel robe in rugby stripes.

As for the accompanying campaign, it’s all about family and being outdoors. The company said it “candidly captures the notion of togetherness and embracing life outside in the garden – a core focus of Planet Good Earth’s work”.

The linkup with Planet Good Earth, will be “championed” across the two brands’ editorial and social channels, and in immersive Arket window displays.

Karl-Johan Bogefors, Arket’s Brand and Communications Director highlighted that it’s the label’s “first ever ready-to-wear design collaboration on this scale” and said it’s “an innovative collection, both unisex and ageless in its approach, inspired by the joy of colour and nature”. The collab “gives us a unique opportunity to reach a global, style-conscious audience looking for modern and sustainable everyday design,” he added.