Engineered Garments VESTS1

While many Americana-inspired brands never escape the terminally decaying orbit inherent to imitation, for two decades and counting, Daiki Suzuki’s Engineered Garments has nimbly vaulted beyond the boundaries of workwear formalism. The paradigm of Suzuki’s designs can be situated by tracing the fashion milieux through which he moved prior to launching Engineered Garments: an early brush with mountaineering gear; the ‘designer and character’ brand boom spawned by the popularity of Comme des Garçons; finally, the analog nature of working as a buyer for Nepenthes boutiques in the early 90's. The result is a literal patchwork of complementary patterns—madras, polka dot, floral, Glen plaid—carried by menswear pieces fabricated in taffeta, ripstop nylon, twill, or satin. Year-on-year, Engineered Garments conflates everything American as it teases the codes of Depression-era suiting and mid-70's mil spec detailing into an aesthetic that, through its jarring incompatibility with its historical reference points, is utterly at home in the hyper-recursive present.