The Puffer Jacket. An item of clothing that has become indispensable in the winter months. Not only for its literal purpose of keeping one warm but rather, these days it has become a staple winter fashion statement. So much so it’s now often caught sight of on the streets throughout the year way before the weather truly warrants its presence. It has become one of celebrities’ latest staple winter fashion coats, positioning itself as a clear canvas of choice for avant-garde fashion.
Invented in 1936 by outdoor adventurer Eddie Bauer after almost dying of hypothermia on a fishing trip, originally known as the ‘down jacket’. A purely practical item of clothing that consisted of an outer jacket encased with feathers, in its origins sold as the ‘skyliner’. Nowadays, the puffer jacket gets its name from the pattern that makes up the jacket: stitched sections filled with insulating material giving the garment that characteristically ‘puffy’ look.
Year after year the silhouettes and style of puffer jackets have become quite the indicator of where fashion stands trend-wise. Showcasing the popular aesthetic types. It’s fair to say that the past few years show clear signs of futuristic clothing taking the lead in the fashion scene.
You can’t talk about puffer jackets without talking about Moncler puffer jackets
As we were writing this we came to the realization that many of the designs for puffer jackets that have stood out to us the most throughout the year were actually in one way or another connected to Moncler. The Italian high-fashion household name is a legend when it comes to all things jackets, vests, raincoats and windbreakers.
The thing is, Moncler knows exactly what it’s doing, bringing in trailblazing talents to break the mould of the traditional puffer jacket (which they themselves more often than not uphold with their designs) in a groundbreaking manner. Showing that it is possible to somehow subvert the tradition of the puffer jacket while upholding its quintessence by injecting it with a little imagination sprinkled with a whole lot of artistry and innovation.
Moncler x Rick Owens
For its 70th anniversary, Moncler launched a series of collaborations called Moncler Maya 70. These collaborations consisted of seven reinterpretations by seven industry-leading designers of the label’s signature Maya jacket.
I applied the architecturally quilted shoulders that I introduced in my men’s Fall/Winter 2021 collection called Gethsemane. It was one of the four shows I did on Venice’s lido beach in Italy during the Covid lockdowns. We refer to them as our girdered shoulders – symbolically meant to support the weight of contemporary adversities.
Rick Owens in Hypebeast
Moncler went NFT with Antoni Tudisco
We, of course, couldn’t finish this article without talking about the least traditional move by Moncler so far. Taking into account that puffer jackets were invented out of a literal need to combat hypothermia, creating a digital NFT that cannot be used in the physical plane so to speak is about subversive as you can get.
Also part of the Maya 70, Tudisco and Moncler collaborated in the creation of 7 pieces of futuristic clothing resented globally as NFTs.
I wanted to ensure that each piece merges Moncler’s one-of-a-kind style with the scenery in a format that enables the viewer to recognize that the future of streetwear fashion is right now.
Antoni Tudisco in mpost
Dingyun Zhang and Moncler were a match made in heaven
What can we say? Dingyun Zhang and Moncler literally had us salivating with their Spring 2022 ready-to-wear collaboration. The futuristic outfits were ethereal and otherworldly. After all, according to Zhang the collection was inspired by “the ambiguous themes of the deep sea,”.
That’s not to say that these designers wouldn’t have created great winter fashion products without Moncler. They have, and they do. It simply goes to show what an iconic symbol of the epitome of winter fashion Moncler is. It is no coincidence for all of these staggering talents to have converged in Moncler with their iterations of the puffer jacket. A winter fashion right of passage perhaps.
