Two Minimalist Masters Show What a Modern Collab Should Look Like
Neither Lady White Co. nor Kaptain Sunshine aim to reinvent the wheel. They merely want to do better by it. This they do in their own disparate ways, Lady White by transforming the archetypes of American sportswear into an intellectual modernist wardrobe and Kaptain Sunshine by thoughtfully reshaping unassumingly effortless menswear.
The most obvious thing they share, besides a commitment to patient craft and artful textiles, is the notion that there's no point in creating clothes that aren't obviously good. These makers create clean clothes, mature clothes, wearable clothes. But different kinds of clothes.
Still, that throughline is potent enough that a Lady White and Kaptain Sunshine collaboration feels quite natural, yielding a concise capsule of imminently excellent wearables.
The styles and the silhouettes hew towards the familiar, playing off of the ageless garments worn on America's East and West coasts since forever: easy pullovers and overdyed trousers cut full-figured for comfort, all available on Lady White and Kaptain Sunshine's websites on March 28.
As such, this is a collaboration of the truest sort, where the intent is not to slap together two logos but put two heads together to create something that neither would have created alone.
You get a dash of Lady White's sportiness through deep-dyed long-sleeve T-shirts and a crispy half-zip shirt fitted with a packable hood. And in the soft linen shorts and loose hooded blouson, you can feel Kaptain Sunshine; this is a label famed for retooling recognizable shapes with silky (here, literally silk) fabrics that look best blown by the breeze.
There's nothing breezy about Kaptain Sunshine right now, though, as it's serious about expanding the reach of its elegant inclinations with the first physical boutiques in its 13-year history. More importantly, its second-ever store just opened in Seoul, reflecting a desire to plant its flag overseas.
Meanwhile, Lady White Co. is always working on itself. Its clothes are made humanely of mostly domestic materials fabricated and finished a short drive from Lady White's Los Angeles HQ. This process can be perfected but Lady White's expanding interest in new shapes is boundless. Its collaborations, often with Japanese brands, amplify that exploration by fleshing out aspects of its practice that it can't perfect itself, be that Orslow's denim, Phigvel's leather goods, or Kaptain Sunshine's jaunty je ne sais quoi.
