Dive Brief:
- Nautica is returning to its roots, launching a menswear collaboration with YouTube content creator Eddie Win on Wednesday as part of a larger promotion honoring the preppy brand’s 40th anniversary, the company said in a statement.
- The limited 23-piece Win menswear capsule will include tees, joggers and baseball caps. Nautica said many of the items are based on designs that date back to the 1980s and ’90s.
- Nautica’s first anniversary capsule, released last week, was the 14-piece men’s 1983 Collection. The brand said it used items from its 40-year history as inspiration, and that limited edition capsule features rugby shirts, sweaters, tees and shorts.
Dive Insight:
The 1983 Collection is available online through Nautica, Macy’s and Belk, as well as in select Macy’s and Belk stores later in August, while the Eddie Win collab will be sold exclusively through Nautica’s website.
Marketing support for the 1983 line, which costs between $34.99 to $108, includes a Macy’s Herald Square window takeover and Times Square billboard. Meanwhile, Eddie Win will showcase content for his collaboration on YouTube, where his channel currently boasts more than 235,000 subscribers.
Sneaker influencer Win has long been cultivating his online presence, and in addition to his YouTube audience, has amassed more than 52,000 followers on his Instagram page. He has previously collaborated with Saucony and DTC brand Contemporary Goods, and his videos have made him popular with fans of vintage streetwear.
“The goal of this collaboration was to create something that was both true to my style and Nautica’s,” Win said in the release. “Walking into Nautica’s archive felt like going back in time. There’s a rich history there that I wanted to tap into and bring to light with a new twist.”
These are the first two capsules of a larger launch for Nautica, whose Creative Director Steve McSween told WWD that other limited editions would launch later in 2023. The next drop is slated for September, but McSween didn’t reveal additional information and instead said, “They’ll be a nice cadence for the rest of the year.”
Authentic Brands Group bought Nautica from VF Corporation in 2018 for an undisclosed amount, and in March, G-III announced it had secured a new long-term license with Authentic for Nautica, effective in January 2024. The brand has approximately 1,300 freestanding stores and shop-in-shops globally, per the G-III announcement, and at the time of the 2018 sale, Authentic reported that Nautica saw over $1.2 billion in annual retail sales.
Meanwhile, vintage and vintage-inspired casualwear, particularly from branded archival collections, is trending now. Lacoste partnered with DTC brand Sporty & Rich in May for a capsule featuring preppy pieces inspired by Lacoste’s archives of the 1970s and 1980s. Then in June, Gap announced it would be releasing a collection of in-house vintage items from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Just last week, Gap also released its 76-piece LoveShackFancy collaboration, which brings vintage-inspired florals and feminine frills to its denim line.
