eYe Junya Watanabe was created as an extension of the main menswear line to be a more casual diffusion with wider appeal. And it seems like the brand is expanding its appeal to Mother Nature itself through a collaboration with The North Face.

There’s only one product that is coming out of this upcoming collaboration, but it makes a big enough statement that no other pieces are needed. And it’s… A hoodie. Visually, it looks like any regular hoodie you can find at a thrift shop. But sitting at ~US$926, it could just be the most expensive hoodie that The North Face has put out, but perhaps for good reason.

Dubbed the “Earth Hoodie”, this textile-focused collaboration utilises Brewed Protein fibre created by Japanese textile company Spiber. As its name suggests, Spiber is inspired by the silvered threads of spiders, which are one of the world’s strongest naturally occurring byproducts. The Brewed Protein, thus, is durable lab-grown fermented microbes that is made without the use of animals or plastics. It strives to be an alternative to petroleum-based materials that are oft used in winter wear.

One pertinent example is fleece. Despite its soft touch, many fleece-centric garments are infused with polyester and are definitely not animal-free. By employing Spiber’s technology to craft their latest collaborative hoodie, eYe Junya Watanabe and The North Face fuses organic and manmade productions, envisioning a future of sustainability whereby garments no longer depend on the ruin of some part of Nature. In some way, this project is more than the resultant piece itself, but a push to have such eco-conscious materials be more visible in the notoriously damaging fashion industry.

This earth-conscious, textile-forward eYe Junya Watanabe x The North Face “Earth Hoodie” will be available on 21 October and as mentioned, retail for JPY93,500 (~US$926).

In other apparel news, check out this Grateful Dead x thisisneverthat collection that’s beary iconic.