Carhartt WIP ‘excavates’ the history of its Active Jacket with a monumental installation at Tate Modern

It was 1975 that American workwear brand Carhartt, known for a rugged sensibility which has since been adopted by subcultures the world over, first introduced its Active Jacket, a hooded zip-up in reinforced canvas made to protect against the elements – whether on construction site or skate park.

For the half-decade that has followed, the Active Jacket has remained in production, appearing in various forms, including a 1997 version by Carhartt WIP, the Europe-based sub-brand which takes Carhartt’s heavy-duty silhouettes and reimagines them in lighter, more refined fabrications and fits (albeit retaining the sturdy, utilitarian feel of the originals). It is this version, the ‘OG Active Jacket’, which has since become ubiquitous, appearing in canvas, stone-washed denim, leather and sweater jersey iterations, and worn by everyone from skaters and style-conscious urbanites to off-duty Hollywood stars.

On Thursday evening (6 November 2025), Carhartt WIP took over the Herzog & de Meuron-designed Tanks in London’s Tate Modern – the converted subterranean oil tanks of the former power plant which now houses the contemporary art institution – with a celebratory installation, created in collaboration with Thomas Subreville’s ‘post-disciplinary’ agency ILL-STUDIO. Taking the idea of excavation at its heart, the project was titled ‘Sedimental Works’ – a reference to the idea of sifting through the layers of the Active Jacket’s history (an accompanying book of the same name will also be released).

As such, the quarry-like mise-en-scène – complete with hulking columns of ‘rock’ which interplayed with the existing concrete architecture – evoked a site in mid-excavation, with Subreville and his team exploring the idea that associations can accumulate around a garment over time. ‘I was interested in how a functional object can become a cultural register, something that transcends its function and begins to absorb its own afterlife,’ Subreville explains to Wallpaper*, saying that the project has been a natural extension of his interrogation of ideas of ‘objecthood, context, and perception’ in his work so far.

‘From the beginning, I wanted to avoid nostalgia,’ he continues. ‘The idea was not to celebrate a product but to look at the jacket as an open document of personal identity and collective symbolism, a fixed form in a constantly shifting world.’ As such, the ‘forward-minded retrospective’ instead took a more fragmentary form, with sound, video and a series of live performances unfolding across the evening, including a set from Copenhagen-based singer-songwriter Erika de Casier.

The Tanks, which were opened to the public in 2012 after an extensive renovation, felt like an apt setting for the ‘spatial geography’ of the installation, says Subreville, who wanted to echo the space’s austerity. ‘They already feel like an excavation, a space carved out of time, both archaeological and contemporary. There is a strong resonance between the industrial past of Tate Modern and the origin of the Active Jacket. Both were born from utility, and later absorbed into culture as symbols.’ The goal, he continues, is to ‘not to tell people what to see, but to let them excavate their own associations’.

Of his own associations with the Active Jacket – which, alongside the collared ’Detroit’ jacket and the carpenter pant, remains one of Carhartt WIP’s most lucrative exports – Subreville thinks it represents ‘a kind of shared uniform’, regardless of ’age, gender, or background’. ‘Everyone has their own version of it, whether literal or symbolic, a piece that gathers traces of work, weather, culture, and time,’ he says. ‘Whether you are a 55-year-old worker or a 16-year-old teenager, it becomes what you need it to be. It is not about design; it is about context.’

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