Clark Kent always kept his Superman suit underneath his professional wear. But what if he’d wanted to mix his performance-oriented superhero outfit with his stylish, Don Draper buttoned-down look? He’d probably check out the new Arc’teryx Veilance collection, which the company claims “brings the application of technical performance into urban apparel.”
Just launched October 1, the high-end collection includes pants, Merino sweaters, dress shirts and tees made from technical materials. For instance, the field jacket is built with a Gore-Tex fabric. The line’s blazers and pants are made from Windstopper.
“In the same thread as the performance outerwear that Arc’teryx makes, the Veilance collection is technically focused menswear, based on knowledge gained by constructing premier outdoor apparel,” explains a rep for the company.
The line was designed for more “sophisticated environments,” the company says, than outdoors-oriented apparel can swing. The Veilance garments are a few steps up on the fashion food chain, and they use “top-tier fabrics and state-of-the-art manufacturing techniques” to create a new category of performance menswear, Arc’teryx adds.
If you’re wondering on what market they’re going for, just take a look at a place like The Tannery in Boston, one of the stores that’s featuring the line. Located in Harvard Square, the store sells high-end outerwear as well as sneakers and shoes. It also doubles as a sneaker boutique featuring limited edition kicks as well as some carefully-selected snowboard and skateboard gear. The Tannery is not a skate shop, board shop, or sneaker shop per se, but a store that has “curated” its high-end gear, long before The New York Times wrote about this recent phenomena.
The Veilance line is not available in all stores that regularly carry Arc’teryx. Instead, it’s at premium men’s clothing stores like: 290 Square Metres in Amsterdam, The Glade Firmament in Berlin, International Gallery Beams and Beams House in Tokyo, and The Hideout in London.
The prices? You knew it wouldn’t be cheap. At $250 for a merino wool sweatshirt and $1,000 bucks for the stylish, field jacket, Arc’teryx is obviously marketing beyond the ski bum and climber-dirtbag categories.
Maybe too rich for a journalist like Superman, too. But the prices are in line with designer fashion found in many boutiques. And the Veilance line offers both high fashion and high performance.
—Stephen Krcmar lives in Mammoth Lakes, Calif but is still paying for some limited edition Vans he picked up at The Tannery in Boston.
