No disrespect to Huf but I didn't think the venerable skate company had it in itself. Call a craving for clothes with personality , call it a newfound rediscovery of full-blast branding, but Huf's Alien collab has no business being this excellent.
The skate label turned out over a half-dozen pieces of collaborative merch for its Ridley Scott classic and, you know what? This shit slaps.
There's a full zip "Facehugger" hoodie that riffs on a classic critter design but is really just a banger iteration of the oversized skele-zip that draws from the heyday of LRG . The matching skullcap simply slaps, abstracting an H.R. Giger-adjacent design to fleshy lines. A work jacket printed with X-ray-style creatures hits similarly. And the Xenomorph thermal is just good. It's just really good.
Not bad for a brand better known for being sold at the mall . And none of it is even all that expensive !
The key to a great collaboration is an elevation of the partners. It either recontextualizes familiar elements into something fresh or it turns out something all-new and ingenious. It is predicated entirely on ingenunity. And, on that front, Huf turned out a gosh-darn slam-dunk.
How easy would it have been to slap a couple logos on a shirt and call it a day? But the scale of the high-contrast graphic prints and the washed-out 'n easy nature of the garments they occupy hit a sweet spot that I could never have called. Remember, this is the weed sock brand.
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Jake Silbert is Highsnobiety's Director of News. An award-winning writer, Jake has nearly a decade of experience overseeing fashion publications, leading editorial teams, and publishing in print media.
Jake previously lived in Japan, following a multi-year obsession with Japanese fashion, food, and design, before moving back to America to begin a career as a writer and editor. At Highsnobiety, Jake explores subjects that range from Tory Burch’s rebranding to the humble beauty of brown clothes to the last collaborative Louis Vuitton collection ideated by NIGO and the late Virgil Abloh, for which he conducted one of Abloh’s final interviews.
Jake is perhaps best known for tackling divisive subjects, such as Supreme’s waning relevance, that incite discussion among even people who only read the article’s headline (believe it or not). Previously, Jake pitched, wrote, and edited content for a handful of burgeoning digital publications, even drafting think pieces for social media simply for the sake of spreading the good word about good clothing.
That’s what it all comes back to for Jake: good clothing. Jake lives in New York City where he’s perpetually hunting for the best bagel and collecting .mp3s like a boomer.
Loves: chunky walking sneakers, washed-out clothing, Simpsons podcasts, Dark Souls speedruns. Hates: overripe apples, sweaty summer humidity.