Barbour x A.P.C. Is For The Waxy Denimheads

Back for round two, materials were the mood boards’ starting point for this South Shields-meets-Paris link-up. 

Wax and denim. That’s where Barbour and A.P.C’s second collaboration kicks off, as an exploration of two durable fabrics, designed to last. 

Waxed cotton has been intrinsic to Barbour since its inception in 1894, when founder John Barbour started making up oilskins to workers from the perils of the British weather, offering wearers long-lasting waterproof goodness. In short, these jackets were built tough. They’ve been worn by guys like Steve McQueen, British Royalty including King Charles and Princess Diana, and indie frontmen on the festival circuit. A.P.C. was founded by Jean Toutou in 1987 as an antidote to overly flashy design – and it’s most famous for its refreshingly simple, sturdy raw denim. 

Both brands might, at first, seem worlds apart; Barbour is a heritage label from South Shields, with fans spanning shotgun-shooting country-folk to Red Stripe-slurping festival headliners. A.P.C. is the stealth, minimalist Parisian label you might imagine a frustratingly put-together architect wearing to their office in the Marais. How do they come together? Well imagine a wardrobe that works on both ends of the Eurostar, sitting between Theo James in The Gentlemen and going all in at a 2002 Air gig in Paris. The Barbour x A.P.C. collaboration does that through two Beaufort in premium waxed cotton, a denim offering, and accessories including ball caps, satchels, wellies, and clogs.

Images courtesy of Barbour

For those deeply nerdy menswear guys in the chat, this collection brings back Barbour’s premium exclusive Thornproof wax cotton from the archives, applied to the Beaufort jackets. It has a denser weave and heftier structure. It’s also deep in colour, and the type of thing that gets better the more you scrunch it up, wear it, wear it again, and generally beat it up. We get the same thing with the denim, which sees straight-fitting New Standard jeans and trucker jackets cut to close-fitting and almost tailored proportions from Japanese raw denim that will whisker and wear to a stellar unique patina. 

The combination of the two universes forms a nice crossover in the menswear Venn diagram. Both brands are rooted in hardwearing materials that have stood the test of time. A.P.C.’s unfussy denim fits nicely into the wardrobes of clean Parisian minimalists. Barbour’s waxed cotton jackets work hard in England’s rainy fields on farmers, indie frontman and London to Cotswolds expats. Putting the two together though, it’s very easy to imagine a world where you ditch the Paris club, throw a Beaufort over your raw denim jacket and stuff your game pocket with tinnies to drink by the Seine. Or that’s where the collaboration takes this writer, at least.