Written by Menswear Style in Events on the 15th January 2020

Jacket Required is the UK’s only trade event presenting a curated showcase of the most progressive and contemporary men’s collections. Innovative, creative and with more than a nod to London’s inimitable sartorial swagger, Jacket Required strives to inspire buyers to explore the business potential of their stores and provides a platform for both established and new talent making waves in the fashion industry.

A revamp and new layout aims to attract buyers with a streamlined edit of new brands to the show including Hedon, Bjanko Milano, and Alexridolfi, alongside leading labels Aigle, Pantherella, Suit Denmark, Fjallraven, Didriksons, SECRID, LOIS Jeans, TOMS, Kangol, and many more. Generating an experiential buzz, the installation of a Santa Cruz Skate Ramp will offer entertaining live demonstrations from their skilled skate team. Santa Cruz will also be presenting its AW20 collection alongside streetwear brands Arbor, Powell Peralta, Straye Footwear, Body Glove, IMPALA and R8GZ. Sustainability continues to be a key focus for the show and will showcase the debut collection from new label United Change Makers (UCM). Also, Snowman New York will bring the Big Apple to East London with outerwear that’s as functional as it is unique.

Jacket Required takes place at East London's Old Truman Brewery on the 22nd – 23rd January 2020. This season they've put their best foot forward to bring together an edited collection of cherished heritage and premium footwear brands alongside new designers, technical, and streetwear. Celebrating 150 years and heralding from Tasmania, Blundstone durable boots are rugged, with their own natural beauty and distinctive look and feel. They have evolved in style, design, and technology over the years, but the quality has never changed, and the new collection will be on display at Jacket Required. First time exhibitors at Jacket Required include performance footwear brand On Running; as well as streetwear brand Munich Footwear whose heritage goes back to the Spanish Civil War; and Serts London - a London based footwear label creating high-end, handcrafted footwear. Visitors will also discover the AW20 collections from Cheaney Shoes, Oliver Sweeney, Superga, Sebego, Atlantan Mocassin, Duca Del Cosma, Palladium, Yogi Footwear, R.M. Williams, and Lotto. 

Adam Gough, Event Director of Jacket Required says: “Footwear at Jacket Required is an integral element of the menswear buying offer so our team are working hard to refine yet grow the premium and streetwear collections on show at Jacket Required. AW20 aims to inspire, celebrate tradition and champion newness.”

United Change Makers will show their capsule collection with styles that last from season-to-season and become a timeless piece in your wardrobe. They want to create a community of wearers and warriors, fighting fast fashion in a pair of jeans that you pull from the laundry before they’ve hit the wash because you can’t bear to be without them. Fashion is about more than just the clothes, it’s about people. Without the designers, makers and consumers the industry wouldn’t function. We all have a role to play in making fashion more sustainable, both in the way we treat our suppliers and shoppers as well as how we look after our clothes. UCM are all about the close relationships with their sourcing team and factories, all of which are passionate about working with quality, sustainable fabrics and fibres. This means their jeans are made with care by a team who are looked after. With this, they hope their customers share a philanthropic attitude to fashion and will help them share their story and continue their mission towards a more sustainable fashion industry.

Raeburn will show their autumn/winter 2020 Carcass collection. For this Raeburn collaborated with award-winning Icelandic photographer Ragnar Axelsson (“Rax”). For over 40 years Rax has been photographing the people, animals and landscape of the most remote regions of the Arctic, including Iceland, Siberia and Greenland. In hauntingly beautiful images, he captures the elemental, human experience of nature at the edge of the liveable world, making visible the extraordinary relationships between the people of the Arctic and their extreme environment — relationships now being altered in profound and complex ways by the unprecedented changes in climate. Raeburn has used original full colour images captured by Rax throughout the collection, printed onto 100% recycled cotton-feel polyesters and silk habotai. Haunting images of fragmented glaciers stand as future relics; these impactful prints bear witness to the immediate and direct threat of global warming whilst also acting as a celebration of the natural beauty of the Arctic. Carcass is a new, radical extension of the Remade concept, adopting an approach normally associated with hunter-gatherers: every last scrap of the original garment is used in its entirety, adding nothing new but branded labels and thread. The first Carcass exploration sees Raeburn deconstruct an original 1960s survival-orange US Air Force flying coverall before intelligently reconstructing three new products: an over-shirt, attaché case and wallet — all lovingly crafted at the Raeburn Lab, East London.

With brands such as United Change Makers and Raeburn exhibiting, here's What to Expect from Jacket Required 2020 at the Old Truman Brewery by event director Adam Gough.