New collection from C.P. Company revives a design classic

Left: Male model wearing khaki hooded jacket and trousers, against a white tiled wall. Right: Male model wearing a long brown jacket and black trousers, leaning forward onto an orange metal guard rail, stone paved floor and metal shutter backdrop

C.P. Company Metropolis Series A/W 2022

(Image credit: TBC)

last updated 28 September 2022

‘No smog, for protection, a shell for consciousness,’ ran the original tagline for the Metropolis jacket by C.P. Company, part of the Italian brand’s seminal Urban Protection range first released in 1999. Designed by then-creative director Morena Ferrari, each piece was primed for the demands of turn-of-the-millennium city life – from a jacket which warned its wearer of air contamination via a flashing green-to-red LED light, to pieces crafted from dynavil, a fabric which is water, wind, oil and tear proof (other garments were created with built-in torches, travels pillows and even a scooter). The Metropolis parka jacket itself came complete with a removal ‘smog mask’, and a multitude of other functional features, pockets and compartments.

C.P. Company Metropolis collection: made for city living

Close up detail of grey CP Company jacket — C.P. Company Metropolis Series A/W 2022

The Metropolis serves as inspiration for a new collection of the same name, released by C.P. Company this month. Drawing inspiration from the original Urban Protection range – which the company deem ‘true objects of industrial design’ – the various pieces utilise the innovative fabrications and manufacturing techniques long at the heart of the label to create a collection which reimagines a uniform for city living in the 2020s. C.P. Company say that they hope the collection will ‘reduce the stress of urban life’.

Spanning dynatec parkas – a lighter version of the original dynavil used in the inaugural Urban Protection collection – multi-pocket overshirts, and soft-shell jackets, crafted from recycled nylon, the Metropolis collection is defined by ‘minimalist design’ and utilitarian features, alongside signature C.P. Company branding (labels inside denote the various fabrications and features). Other innovations include a modular pocket system which utilises seamless technology for ‘optimum comfort and functionality’, while other garments are playful hybrids – one jacket, for example, comes with the sleeves of a knitted sweater for a unique two-in-one.

INFORMATION

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Jack Moss is the Fashion Features Editor at Wallpaper*, joining the team in 2022. Having previously been the digital features editor at AnOther and digital editor at 10 and 10 Men magazines, he has also contributed to titles including i-D, Dazed, 10 Magazine, Mr Porter’s The Journal and more, while also featuring in Dazed: 32 Years Confused: The Covers, published by Rizzoli. He is particularly interested in the moments when fashion intersects with other creative disciplines – notably art and design – as well as championing a new generation of international talent and reporting from international fashion weeks. Across his career, he has interviewed the fashion industry’s leading figures, including Rick Owens, Pieter Mulier, Jonathan Anderson, Grace Wales Bonner, Christian Lacroix, Kate Moss and Manolo Blahnik.