Junya Watanabe Is Quietly Producing Palace’s Best Outerwear

Oct 30, 2024

Without looking at the tag on the inside, there’s no way of knowing the eYe Junya Watanabe MAN x Palace Technical Jacket is a collaboration.

This jacket is, to the bare eye, a pretty standard Palace half-zip. However, look a bit closer, and you’ll see that this is of a quality you won't find on anything from Palace’s mainline.

While Junya Watanabe hasn’t spelled out his influence on the jacket’s design by way of a legible logo, the Japanese designer has made his influence seen through its craftsmanship. See, this is effectively a Junya Watanabe jacket with the Palace logo thrown onto it.

The giveaway that Junya handled the creation of this jacket is in its production origins — made in Japan, like with all Junya clothing — and its price point, $1,195. For comparison, a standard Palace technical jacket normally runs at around $200.

Like with previous Junya Watanabe x Palace collaborations, including a $2,000 bomber jacket and a $1.5k hoodie, this jacket was quietly uploaded to the Dover Street Market website.

No campaign shoot, no sign-ups for the Palace store, and definitely no bots eating up all the stock, even the way this jacket has been released is very Junya — and not very Palace. At the time of writing, the London-based streetwear label hasn’t even posted the jacket to Instagram.

This approach, taking a cheaper-priced brand’s typical styles and recreating them in Japan with top-grade fabrics, is one Junya Watanabe regularly takes. Also in its latest collection are Carhartt overalls, costing $1,790, and a C.P. Company nylon goggle parka jacket, retailing for just shy of $2k.

With all these pieces, Junya's logo is nowhere outwardly to be seen. Junya Watanabe almost acts like a consultant operating in the background of his own collaboration.