Stefan Cooke transforms the hoodie into a modern-day suit of armour

Inspiration for Stefan Cooke and Jake Burt’s latest collection struck when the two designers were mooching about London landmark museum the Wallace Collection. Hidden among the ostentatious golden Rococo bureaus and crystal-dripping chandeliers are a selection of suits of armour – the kind of thing steely knights would have worn when riding into battle back in the 15th Century.. 

These heavy metal contraptions are probably about the furthest thing away from the classic, cosy hoodie that has dominated wardrobes for the last 50 years, but for Cooke and Burt, a spark of an idea took hold. The result is a collaborative offering which sees the label join forces with South Korean stalwart Solid Homme, and features a swathe of easy to wear pieces destined to become everyday classics.

There’s the hoodie, of course, in a patchy purple tie-dye, as well as a washed-out denim shirt, a blousy leather bomber, and a crisp, clean field jacket, with each one bearing Stefan Cooke’s signature offbeat flourishes, like enamel stud details lifted from the helmets and breastplates they spotted in the corridors of the Wallace Collection. 

Having spent a summer in New York and Maine scouring secondhand stores for casual additions to their own wardrobes, the collection is an amalgamation of the two: sartorial All-American archetypes meets Knights of the Round Table. Further inspiration came via indie sleaze-era band These New Puritans, who drew on traditional chamber music circa tracks including “Drum Courts - Where Corals Lie”, on which the past was dragged into the present through contemporary stylings and construction. According to Cooke and Burt, they played it on repeat on a flight to New York last year.

The collection's pièce de résistance, meanwhile, and Cooke’s favourite design, is a subversive leather bag trimmed with soft shearling. “We had the Solid Homme team make a pilot’s helmet for fun and when we were out there [in South Korea], we folded it over in a fitting to make a small bag. It was nice to be able to make incredibly ad-hoc decisions like that and have them sampled at the speed of light,” says Burt.

The Solid Homme collab has been around three years in the making – conversations began shortly before the world entered various shades of COVID of lockdown, which initially halted the project in its tracks. Eventually, though, the two figured it out, with Cooke explaining that the partnership was something of a match made in heaven. “The whole Solid Homme team has the same spirit [as the people who work with us],” the designer says. “They’re all fanatical about the details and materials, so it was great to push each other [in different ways] in that respect.”