Strike a pose: why do car companies collaborate with fashion brands?

Top Gear is standing on a New York rooftop, flanked by one of those typically NYC water towers. Except that we’re actually in a disused power station in northern Germany, repurposed as a studio space in which someone has gone to a lot of trouble recreating an NYC rooftop.

I’m leaning on a lone Mercedes G-Wagen, an original SWB car that’s been given a substantial makeover. Old G-Wagens are fashionable, but this one’s next level. That’s because it’s a collaboration between Mercedes-Benz, French outerwear label Moncler and Nigo, creative director of Kenzo, DJ, art collector, friend of Pharrell Williams, the OG hypebeast, and all round 21st century renaissance man. Nigo’s here, too, but he doesn’t really do interviews. The enigma is expertly preserved at all times. I say hello, he nods fashionably.

His G-Wagen is called Past II Future, and follows Moncler’s Project Mondo G, which transformed the wheels into giant silver puffer jacket style cladding and artfully distressed the paintwork. More art piece than car, it looked like it could rove the moon. Nigo’s car is an earthbound one off, with a signature puffer cover over the rear, two-tone paintwork, gold fuel filler can, and a custom sound system by audiophile/artist Devon Turnbull.

There’s also a Moncler x Nigo capsule collection that channels early 1990s US east coast hip hop vibes, and includes a bomber jacket emblazoned with a print of the G-Class and a shirt with a dashboard graphic, among other G-inspired items. At the launch in Shanghai, a billboard was illuminated with the words, “Where the future is driven by the past.”

And you thought Mercedes was a carmaker.

Car companies doing fashion collabs is nothing new, but it’s a phenomenon that’s been supercharged by the curious times in which we find ourselves. Analogue is scrapping with digital, style is supplanting lifestyle, and brand is all. Mercedes is very active in the area, and set the bar sky high when it worked with the late Virgil Abloh, artistic director for Louis Vuitton’s menswear and a veritable polymath, on 2022’s six metre long, solar powered electric Project Maybach off road super coupe. (NB Abloh also did a G-Wagen.)

Other recent partnerships include the Alpine F1 team’s one off activation with Palace Skatewear, Kith and BMW hooking up to reimagine a BMW M1 (their third collab), Bentley dropping a capsule collection with London label Picante, Porsche and New York label Aimé Leon Dore, and Lewis Hamilton’s +44 operation hooking up with Tyler, the Creator’s Golfwang label ahead of the Vegas GP. (Lewis, forever fashion forward, did another, with Japanese artist and car lover, Hajime Sorayama.) All are precision tooled to collapse the internet and set the world of social media into a 600mph spin.

“Fashion labels are brilliant at branding and marketing,” says Peter Howarth, former editor of Esquire and Arena, currently men’s style editor for Times Luxx. “They’re among the best known names in the world partly because they’re aggressive about their visibility. You don’t need fashion to get dressed or to keep warm, they’re selling you something they want you to want. They’ve built up this equity over decades and understand how to make it work. So lots of other industries look to fashion because it’s shorthand for desirable. And, by its nature, it makes you contemporary by association.”

For a collaboration to work, Howarth says, it needs to make sense. The G-Wagen is a utilitarian vehicle, Moncler was founded in France in 1952 for mountaineers and explorers. So there’s an authenticity there. “Moncler’s appeal is in the R&D, it’s in the performance of the thing,” he continues, “even if a Moncler jacket is sometimes like a G-Wagen parked in Knightsbridge. The other way a collab can work is if it’s a total surprise. Gucci did a tie up with The North Face which nobody saw coming.”

A firmly established relationship is the one between Paul Smith and Mini. Back in 1999, the great man covered the original Mini in stripes for a 40th anniversary special, a resolute triumph for brand Britain (before Brexit besmirched that idea). More recently, the Mini Strip deepened the collab by reimagining a Mini Electric in a way that challenged all sorts of automotive and fashion industry conventions.

“Here was someone who was asking us questions we really don’t ask ourselves very often. Because we’re the experts, you know?” Mini design boss Oliver Heilmer conceded. “So it was very refreshing. [Sir Paul] started the whole process off by asking things like, ‘What is it made of?’ ‘Do we really need that?’ And then, ‘Well, can we get rid of it?’”

Yes, they could. “When you see the Strip with just one protective coat of paint on it, there are lots of imperfections and scratches, and that I find interesting and modern,” Sir Paul told Top Gear ahead of the car’s reveal. “As a clothes designer, I often hand stitch and put the sleeve head in by hand. Everything is so homogenised now that I like things that indicate handmade, hand finished, raw. My father was a very practical man. He was always in his garage or workshop, and never employed anyone to fix things because he loved doing it himself. So I was brought up with the idea of making do and getting by. It’s a really interesting approach.”

As with Paul Smith’s suits, a key part of the narrative is the hidden twist. “The car is full of tricks. You might be wearing a classic piece of clothing and then you’ll have a brightly coloured scarf or socks. I call them punctuation marks. In the car there’s a fluorescent orange safety strap and I love the doorhandle... it’s made of plaited climbing rope.”

Car companies will continue to seek strategic partnerships wherever there is kudos to be had and brand capital to be made

One offs and capsule collections are the lucrative mainstays of these collaborations, and car companies will continue to seek strategic partnerships wherever there is kudos to be had and brand capital to be made. The jump to standalone fashion label, though, is a feat few could contemplate, beyond selling regular logotastic merch. One big name is doing it, though, and its credibility among the world’s fashion mavens is accelerating, if not quite as quickly as its racing cars: Ferrari.

“Our customers can buy anything they want,” Ferrari’s creative director, Rocco Iannone, tells TG as he outlines its move into haute couture. “Ferrari for them is a community. They are part of an inner circle where we talk about the same values and emotions. After seven collections we have developed a dialogue with our customers. This has helped me emancipate the design language from the automotive side, focusing on the interpretation of the emotions Ferrari can express. But there is still some crossover, and just walking around the factory can be inspiring.”

Charles Leclerc recently unveiled his own capsule collection, citing “Riviera vibes” and the seaside as an inspiration. But what of the arrival of F1’s GOAT? A +44 collab is surely on the cards... Back to Iannone.

“Lewis Hamilton is a fashion hero. He has created a community around him that trusts him and the values he represents, and he has built up his credibility step by step. He has shown that you can achieve the dream. And what is more Ferrari than this message? Ferrari and Lewis is an amazing combo. This contamination is going to be bombastic!”