Today it was announced that Jil Sander will be ending her 3 year collaboration with Uniqlo.
In a joint press release, both UNIQLO’s parent company, Japan’s Fast Retailing and the Hamburg-based Jil Sander, stated that, “With the recent completion of the design of the … fall and winter collection, Ms. Sander and [Uniqlo] agreed that they had fully explored the possibilities of their creative collaboration and accomplished what they had set out to do. Consequently, the two parties have decided to wrap up their design consulting agreement with this (Fall/Winter 2011) collection.”
The +J line set the bar as to how high end collaborations could bring high fashion to a lower price point. When Sander signed the contract with Uniqlo in 2009, she was given a creative director-type role and charged with overseeing all of Uniqlo’s other product lines, but ended up focusing her energies on the +J collections instead.
Her role became more clearly defined when she announced last year that she’d continue her +J lines indefinitely. And although the announcement for her departure is final, there has been no indication that Jil is leaving on bad terms.
Take a look at some of the looks from last year’s +J mens Fall/Winter collection after the break and a few from this year’s mens Fall/Winter Uniqlo collection.
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2010 Jil Sander +J Fall/Winter Collection
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2010 Jil Sander +J Fall/Winter Collection
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2010 Jil Sander +J Fall/Winter Collection
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2010 Jil Sander +J Fall/Winter Collection
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2011 Mens Uniqlo Fall/Winter Collection
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2011 Mens Uniqlo Fall/Winter Collection
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2011 Mens Uniqlo Fall/Winter Collection
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2011 Mens Uniqlo Fall/Winter Collection
