I’m not exactly what you’d call a “fashionable” person. My favorite everyday outfit is a t-shirt and jeans or shorts, depending on the weather. So I’m a bit at a loss to explain how Jony Ive, the famed designer behind the iPhone, came up with a new line of high-profile jackets that will be available later this month. I suspect I’m not the core demographic for this jacket.
Ive’s company, LoveFrom, has teamed up with Italian luxury outdoor fashion brand Moncler to create a new collection that Fast Company calls “improvisational outerwear” – again, I can’t decipher that statement. It has also been described as a series of “light, neutral and pastel pieces”. While I can’t add any useful context beyond the description given, we do have a picture:
Basically, the outfit is a vest over which you can interchangeably wear a “field jacket, parka, or hooded poncho,” Fast Company writes. The biggest quirk of the design is the costume’s ties, which are basically regular ties, except they’re magnetized so you can easily swap out individual costume accessories. Clicking a button helps engage or disengage the outer layer. In this sense, it’s a modular jacket that can change depending on the weather you’re in (or I guess your mood). If you thought this was just “MagSafe for outerwear,” Fast Company has jumped the gun, but they insist the buttons have a very unique feel.
Fast Company writes that LoveFrom and Moncler spent four years developing the outerwear line, and according to Ive, he wanted to create something simple yet elegant. “I have no arrogant ambitions for disruption. [of buttons],” Ive told the media. “It was a very gentle, humble exploration.”
Since leaving Apple in 2019, Ive has spent much of his post-Apple career designing oddly minimalist tweeds for the world’s richest people — and this collection of outerwear looks set to continue that trend ( I’m not sure how much this coat costs, but it certainly doesn’t look cheap). He recently designed the royal coat of arms for the coronation of King Charles III. He’s also said to be working with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on some kind of AI wearable hardware, though we haven’t heard much about that product lately and it’s unclear when or if it will happen. If it took him four years to design a coat, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
