London is about to fizz with colour thanks to the new United Colors of Benetton x Selfridges collection – just in time for fashion week.
The Italian brand, established in Treviso, will debut the first ever collaboration with a department store in its 53-year history, and launch the joint line with a pop-up store in London’s Selfridges Oxford Street on September 14.
For the occasion, it has created a one-minute short film and campaign aimed at celebrating the brand’s heritage through the lens of its archival styles and colours that have inspired the collaboration. The campaign includes both full-length images, and playful casting polaroids that give a closer look at the garments and at the new faces chosen to front it.
The limited-edition capsule collection will revive Benetton’s 80s and 00s designs for a modern, dynamic look. Archive garments, sketches, colour charts and past campaigns – often shot by pioneering Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani, who brought the brand’s visual identity to worldwide recognition – informed a series of designs that include vinyl trench coats, fleece logo tees, sweatshirts, track bottoms and polo shirts, as well as accessories like bucket duffel bags, holdalls, bumbags and baseball hats.
The unisex joint line also includes a collection of knits that will come in 109 celebratory shades: the number 109 was chosen to pay homage to the department store, whose lively signature yellow is the 109th on the Pantone chart. The return of iconic Benetton colourways will be reflected through a young and contemporary perspective in the campaign, that stars a diverse cast of nine street-cast social media influencers and reproduces the styles and bold shades of the two decades.
The capsule collection will be available at the Selfridges pop-up and e-shop, and at Benetton’s new Oxford Street flagship store, where customers will be able to try out a digital shopping experience: tapping into experiential retail with a new omni-channel platform launching on the same day, Benetton will enable its customers to browse through the store’s shelves, but also find out online if their choice of garments is available in their preferred size and where to buy them.
Check out the short film above, and get your hands on the United Colors of Benetton x Selfridges collection on September 14.
