Alpha Industries and GR10K have come together on a collaboration that reworks the CWU-45 jacket. Both brands share roots in military workwear manufacturing. Alpha Industries made garments that subcultures later adopted and reinterpreted. GR10K builds its approach from that same impulse, constructing countercultural aesthetics from within systems of utility.

The CWU-45 was originally developed in 1972 for U.S. Air Force and Navy pilots. Instead of exaggerating the silhouette or adding heavy branding, this collaboration focuses on what GR10K calls operative restoration. The original garment is preserved while its structure is subtly altered and placed in a different cultural context. Here, the jacket is imagined as the uniform of guards working in a fictional provincial museum called Hertrude Wadsworth — Musée des Arts Appliqués. A setting somewhere between cultural bureaucracy and provincial modernism.

The alterations are deliberate. The standard Alpha Industries chest patch is replaced with a museum-branded version. The zipper pull becomes a tangled cord detail combined with a hand-brushed Nite-Ize carabiner and rubberised tips. The padded lining has been removed, emptying the jacket and changing both its silhouette and weight. It becomes lighter and more fluid. The removed padding will be kept by GR10K and reused as base material for future pieces. Brightly coloured velcro and lining elements appear, pushing the jacket beyond functional outerwear toward something more pop in register.

The visuals come from Armature Globale, the project of Andrea Slaviero. They are built around a concept of fatigue. A reflection on repetition and institutional structures. The images show two identical sleep routines of museum staff in identical rooms with recurring features.

Check it out below: