Junya's Runway, Built with 16 Brands
How Junya Watanabe builds his collaborations, from Needles and Stüssy to Levi's.
Junya Watanabe has chosen collaboration partners from different industries and cultural backgrounds, combining each one's design language in new ways within his collections.
In the FW26 season, he rolled out collaborations with The North Face, Stüssy, and Mammut, and in the SS27 menswear collection unveiled in June, he brought 16 brands onto a single runway.
His approach of maintaining each partner's function and heritage while reconstructing them into a design of his own continues this season. We look at how each collaboration unfolds into a different result.
Different Brands, One Design Approach
The collaboration between eYe Junya Watanabe MAN and The North Face, unveiled in August 2026, is a case of reconstructing the functional structure of outerwear. Presenting two pieces, including a jacket combining the Mountain Jacket with a vintage Search and Rescue vest and a bomber based on the MA-1, it brought elements of outdoor and military wear into a single silhouette.
The FW26 collaboration with Stüssy interprets streetwear in a different way. Built around Oxford shirts, outerwear, and cargo pants, it placed Stüssy's graphics on the back rather than the front of the pieces, expressing the brand's identity in a restrained way. Following its first release on August 28, a coverall jacket was released in limited quantities at the Aoyama and Osaka stores on October 16.
Mammut: Alpine Heritage Turned into Fashion
Released on September 24, the collaboration between eYe Junya Watanabe MAN and Mammut reinterprets the heritage of mountaineering equipment as contemporary fashion. Consisting of six jackets, including a Ventile jacket, patchwork quilted outerwear, and an eiderdown jacket, along with one backpack, it reworks functional materials and construction through Watanabe's distinctive design approach.
Rather than the technical functionality required for mountain activities, the collaboration proposes alpine design with an emphasis on fashion. Using elements of mountaineering gear as design details, such as rope-inspired backpack handles and carabiner embellishments, it connects outdoor heritage to everyday style.
The SS27 Runway: 16 Brands in a Single Collection
Junya Watanabe MAN's SS27 collection, "BLING BLING BLING," unveiled in June 2026, was built through collaborations with 16 brands.
From Kappa, Needles, Carhartt, Levi's, and New Balance to DHL and Tricker's, brands spanning sportswear, workwear, streetwear, and tailoring appeared on a single runway.
Centered on tracksuits inspired by 1980s New York hip-hop culture, the collection combined each brand's design codes. Adding denim and workwear, refined shirts, and classic shoes to sportswear, and transforming trench coats into capes and wrap skirts, it reconstructed the structure of familiar items.
In particular, by adding jewelry and decorative elements to hats bearing the DHL logo, it translated a logistics company's uniform into the grammar of luxury fashion. Maintaining the identity of each brand while reassembling them into single looks, the collection showcases Junya Watanabe's signature approach of deconstruction and recombination.
EDITORIAL SMALL TALK
The North Face, Stüssy, Mammut, DHL. The collaboration partners Junya Watanabe has chosen come from different industries and cultures. What they share is a distinct heritage that can't easily be reduced to a single design language.
His approach of preserving each partner's identity while deconstructing and recombining it expands collaboration from simple logo pairing into the realm of design. The individual FW26 collaborations and the SS27 runway show this approach extending beyond single products to become the organizing principle of an entire collection.
