BEAMS marks its 50th anniversary with an Arc'teryx capsule launched from its own Harajuku flagship
BEAMS turns fifty by keeping two of its six-piece Arc'teryx capsule as its own exclusive colourways, and putting its Harajuku flagship on equal billing with New York for the collaboration's anniversary archive show.
BEAMS, the Tokyo select-shop retailer marking its 50th anniversary this year, has unveiled the anniversary's flagship product: a six-piece capsule with Arc'teryx called KOYO, which also marks 25 years since the two companies first began working together, according to a statement BEAMS issued via its own PR TIMES newsroom on September 21.
The name refers to koyo (紅葉, the turning of autumn leaves), and the collection's colourways draw on that palette alongside a shade the two companies call "BEAMS orange," the company said. The line spans Arc'teryx's own Theta AR shell, priced at ¥187,000, down to a cap and a backpack; two of the six pieces, a Gamma jacket (¥52,800) and a Gamma five-panel cap (¥13,200), are sold as BEAMS-exclusive colourways, according to BEAMS.
KOYO goes on sale September 25 at BEAMS Harajuku in Tokyo and simultaneously at Arc'teryx's own stores in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and China, with an entry-lottery process running September 21-22 ahead of general release, according to the release.
A companion exhibition, "NOW/THEN," tracing the archive of the 25-year collaboration, opens first in New York (September 22-24) before its only other stop: BEAMS Harajuku, running September 25-27 with hours extended to 9pm on the Saturday. Admission is free, the company said.
The terms are worth as much attention as the product. A Japanese select shop rarely gets to keep two of six pieces as its own exclusive colourways in a global technical-outdoor brand's anniversary drop, and rarer still is being named the archive show's second and final stop, on equal footing with New York rather than a smaller, later Tokyo satellite date. Fifty years in, and twenty-five years into the Arc'teryx relationship, BEAMS is presenting itself less as a stockist than as a co-author of the story — a distinction that says something about the leverage a select shop can carry with a global brand, beyond any single capsule.