Champion collaborates with British menswear designer Craig Green

Heritage US sportswear brand Champion has announced a new collaboration with British menswear designer Craig Green – set to launch in the UK and Europe on 3 September, 2020.

The capsule Champion x Craig Green collection features nine styles inspired by the Champion archives, celebrating “the functionality at the root of design” with the renowned manufacturer of athletic apparel.

Green said: “Champion has such an incredible history and archive of collegiate uniforms. For me, the collegiate graphics relate to being part of a team and belonging to something, and I like how these pieces were originally created for this function. We explored classic Champion construction details and how elements intended for a purely technical purpose can form the design aesthetic.”

Green has taken collegiate graphics from the Champion archives, each from uniforms supplied to American colleges in the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Topstitched over these are patches that interpret numerical symbols, each signifying the specific decade. For Green, these patches reference the woven sports badges that are so much part of the collegiate uniform.

The designer has also explored the technical innovations that have given Champion its unsurpassed reputation for over 100 years. In a series of sweatshirts, hoodies and jerseys, Green looks at the ribbed gussets that brought movement, comfort and functionality to sportswear. These panels have been pushed far beyond their usual scale.

The campaign imagery was shot with Green’s long-term collaborator, Amy Gwatkin. They created a series of mechanical structures to hold pieces from the collection. The structures were made to resemble exercise equipment or homemade gyms, and the new collection images were shot on the empty playing fields of a British school.