The Spotlight: Penfield x Baartmans and Siegel

David Hellqvist talks to Jamie Barshall, Amber Siegel and Wouter Baartmans about merging their brands’ DNA to create their AW14 collaboration

Style and substance do not always go hand in hand; sometimes we have to choose one over the other. That’s often the case with wintertime outerwear. Defined by bulky silhouettes and puffy shapes, these coats make you look like the Michelin man as opposed to a refined catwalk-inspired dandy.

Outerwear experts Penfield has long worked hard to elevate not only the quality but also design of classic American jackets and coats inspired by the great outdoors. To take their aesthetic to a new level, Penfield is collaborating with London-based menswear brand Baartmans and Siegel for the AW14 season.

Partnering on three pieces, the brands are hellbent on mixing Wouter Baartmans and Amber Siegel’s catwalk qualities with Penfield’s technical expertise.

“The designs have got a deep imprint of Baartmans and Siegel’s luxury aesthetic, while at the same time still being recognisable as classic Penfield silhouettes with a distinct twist. This is what good collaboration should be about,” explains Jamie Barshall, Penfield’s creative director and CEO.

“Yes, we wanted to create a real hybrid of our styles and brand DNAs,” Amber says. Together they went trough the Penfield archives while keeping an eye on Baartmans and Siegel’s theme for their AW14 collection, showcased at London Collections: Men back in January. The outcome was, at least by classic Baartmans and Siegel standards, a sinister sport look: “We wished to communicate and create a darker ‘stealth’ aspect to the garments that felt more mysterious and almost like a villain in a war film. A piece that men could wear and feel confident, but also one that could be versatile and simplistically defined,” Amber explains.

The three coats, all black, were adapted from some of Penfield’s most recent shapes. We decided to realise the designs in a thin neoprene to highlight the sense of action/adventure with many little touched of intelligent internal detailing,” Wouter says of the collaboration.

“Change is good as long as it’s offered in a considered way, that strives to embrace excellence!”

Great collaborations are rare, this is a good example of two brands learning from each other: “When we met Amber and Wouter we quickly understood that Baartmans and Siegel are an incredibly talented and innovative design partnership with a strong focus on outerwear which is of course a very strong category for us and it’s something we have always focused on and are also known for, so it made a lot of sense to combine those resources and that outerwear focus on a special project,” Jamie says.

But Amber, trying to balance the expectations of running a high-end fashion brand dedicated to supreme quality levels with creating wearable and versatile garments that fit 21st century wardrobe demands, knows that pushing herself and Wouter forward is the only option: “Change is good as long as it’s offered in a considered way, that strives to embrace excellence!”