BEAMS Knew Arc'teryx Was Cool 25 Years Ago

Arc’teryx is the coolest outdoor brand on the planet. And it’s been pretty cool for a while, but its latest collaboration with BEAMS goes even bigger. It’s not just because of the pieces themselves, which are near-perfect in their colorblocked beauty, but because the collection marks 25 years of being ahead of the curve.

Back in 1989, Rock Solid Manufacturing (Arc’teryx’s original moniker) just wanted to make superior harnesses for climbers, by climbers. Even when the brand evolved into collections of alpine outerwear and climbing gear, it was still pretty far from an urban fashion house. But that’s when BEAMS came along.

The Japanese retailer’s foresight is legendary. Kei Hirosawa, who in 2001 was a BEAMS buyer, realized that high-mountain style transcended the tastes of those atop the summit. It was pure form following function: because of their specialized engineering and sleek silhouettes, Arc’teryx’s performance pieces naturally translated to flashy streetwear steeze. The proof is in a 25-year-long partnership that’s been on culture’s cutting edge from day one.

It began in 2001 with a distinctively dichromatic Arc’teryx Sebring 25 pack redesigned by BEAMS. A reworked Theta AR jacket came in 2004, succeeded by the 2011 special-edition Theta SV — a GORE-TEX Pro shell done up in a high-contrast five-color palette that came to be a much-coveted streetwear grail in the decade that followed. Arc’teryx’s hallmark BETA SL jacket transformed into a snowed-out shell that embodied wabi-sabi — the Japanese perspective of beauty in imperfection — through asymmetric, monochromatic tri-blocking. 

A thread of contrasting colorblocking tethers the collections’ outerwear and gear. Thematic palettes — like a pastel lavender and yellow “Twilight Trail” or a green, purple, and baby pink “Cosmic Bloom” that draws inspiration from natural superblooms — are cut into patchworked templates that’ve become the collaboration’s signature. 

But what makes the BEAMS x Arc’teryx truly top-tier is that the aesthetic appeal is anchored by real-world usefulness; BEAMS designers actually wear their gear to go climbing with Arc’teryx ambassadors. “Arc’teryx’s main goal is saving climbers’ lives. They don’t need to make something fun,” Keita “Gonzo” Kobayashi, product director of BEAMS, told me at the collection’s launch event. “But the balance of our project is fun. I like to say that 50 percent is gear, and 50 percent is fashion. It’s cool to wear as fashion, but at the same time it works as gear.”

For the first two decades, BEAMS’ exclusive Arc’teryx pieces were only available in Japan, but cultlike status and secondary market mythology eventually led to 2024’s first global release. That brings us to today, the physical manifestation of the BEAMS x Arc’teryx silver jubilee: Koyo.   

Koyo, the Japanese term for the changing autumnal hues of fall leaves, informs an elegant but obvious color palette. On the hero tricolor Theta AR jacket, “Blaze,” one of Arc’teryx’s signature colors, is juxtaposed with BEAMS’ corporate orange color. A celebratory logo to commemorate BEAMS’ 50th anniversary is woven into an interior patch and proudly sits on the outside, the rare moment where Arc’teryx shares branding space with another company. The full collection constitutes six total pieces: specialized climbing pants, a graphic long-sleeve, the first-ever BEAMS-exclusive Gamma jacket, and a logo-embroidered backpack and hat. And it might just be the coolest collection from the duo yet. 

It’s more of a celebration than a collection—and that’s what makes it so good. It takes the most momentous moments from two-and-a-half decades and contemporizes them with a color blocking that feels authentic to both brands and meticulous attention to the purpose of the pieces themselves. And if the past 25 years have taught us anything, it’s that Arc’teryx might receive the credit for the swagger factor, but BEAMS saw the potential first.

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