Who says you can’t get up to new tricks with old duds? Not Nana and Simon Wick, the Copenhagen-based sister and brother act behind upcycling brand (di)vision, which in a short time has gathered a big following for its half-and-half pants, two-way zippered bombers, and vintage Carhartt mashups. Now, the up-and-comers are releasing a one-off collaboration with jeans giant G-Star Raw, and the pairing is a good fit. Simon remembers envying older kids at his school who wore G-Star Raw’s full-legged Elwoods, first introduced in ’96. He built half of this capsule collection around the ergonomic denim style. “I did a custom version of the Elwoods with 96 embroidered—like the ones I remembered from back in the days—then we added the (di)vision logo as well to do our own touch.”
That’s not all there is to this match-up, though. The designer was invited to Amsterrdam to visit G-Star Raw’s archives, where he pulled 96 of the Dutch brand’s pieces, mostly dating from the ’00s, to customize. The siblings have taken a crafty approach to this upcycling project, patching a khaki cargo pocket onto a pair of Elwoods or slicing the bottom of the legs open to add inserts. Material cut from a work shirt is used to create a double hem on a denim skirt, making an easy set, and fabric strips are woven into bags and used as open-work detailing on a miniskirt.
If (di)vision’s last runway collection leaned into grunge, this offering seems to play on the mythology and aesthetics often associated with Copenhagen’s freetown of Christiania. That’s not the only Danish connection; the Wicks gathered 26 of their friends and associates to model these new-old one-of-a-kind creations. “It’s local heroes from Copenhagen that I feel represent me and the brand and Copenhagen very well,” Wick noted.