Carhartt WIP × Nike “SURPLUS® 2025” Collection
October 24, 2025
Two global heavyweights of design and street culture—Carhartt WIP and Nike—are once again crossing paths. Their latest project, the SURPLUS® 2025 collection, is a focused and refined collaboration unveiled to coincide with the SURPLUS® festival in Sydney. The capsule officially dropped on 18 October 2025, offered only to those who attended the event. More than a commercial release, it was a deliberate, almost philosophical statement on what utility and collaboration can still mean in the era of overexposure.
the reunion
Carhartt WIP’s history is rooted in workwear built for labor and endurance, while Nike’s story has always been about athleticism and movement. When these two houses merge, the result has historically balanced toughness and fluidity. Their last major team-up, in 2018, merged Carhartt’s fabric codes with Nike’s technical precision, producing one of the most enduring footwear collaborations of the late-2010s. This new meeting in 2025 trades sneakers for garments, narrowing its focus to pure craftsmanship and tactile storytelling.
The SURPLUS® festival itself provides the ideal setting. Held annually in Sydney, it celebrates community creativity through music, design, and independent retail. Rather than staging a traditional fashion drop, the two brands embedded themselves inside that atmosphere—a nod to how culture and commerce have long intertwined in the world of streetwear.
release
The SURPLUS® capsule launched on the festival’s opening weekend at a temporary Carhartt WIP × Nike stall. There were no online raffles, no region-wide lotteries—just the immediacy of an in-person experience. The brands wanted to recreate an older rhythm of anticipation, where showing up physically still mattered. For attendees, the scarcity heightened the sense of occasion; for distant collectors, it marked the kind of release that becomes mythologized almost overnight.
While neither label has confirmed a wider retail roll-out, speculation continues about a potential follow-up capsule or global drop later in the year. Yet the tone surrounding SURPLUS® 2025 suggests it may remain event-exclusive, adding to the mystique of the garments themselves.
View this post on Instagram
what’s inside the capsule
At the core of the collection is a reinterpreted version of Carhartt’s iconic OG Active Jacket. Rendered in heavyweight duck canvas, it arrives washed to a soft, burnished finish that mimics years of wear. The familiar triple-stitched seams, reinforced elbows, and front kangaroo pocket remain, but Nike’s interventions are evident in the small technical refinements: rubberized zipper pulls, precision drawcords, and a large tonal Swoosh that stretches across the back panel. It’s workwear filtered through an athletic lens—functional, modest, yet unmistakably elevated.
Alongside it comes a double-lined hoodie, cut roomy and dense, using brushed fleece that sits somewhere between Carhartt’s utilitarian sweatshirts and Nike’s sportswear silhouettes. Branding stays subtle—Carhartt’s square patch above the hem, a debossed Swoosh near the cuff. The third piece, a short-sleeve pocket tee, acts as the most accessible entry point: thick cotton jersey, side-stitched durability, and minimalist graphics. A neon-green variant nods to the festival setting, while black and cream versions channel classic workwear tones.
Together, these garments read less like hype product and more like a curated wardrobe—pieces made to age, to stain, to endure. They feel authentic to both brands without excess decoration or noise.
design
Carhartt WIP’s design ethos has always celebrated utility: clothes that serve a purpose first, style second. Nike, conversely, approaches design through performance and emotion—its products are built to enhance movement and identity. The genius of this collaboration lies in finding the seam where those philosophies overlap.
The SURPLUS® 2025 pieces reject flash for feel. Every wash, stitch, and texture conveys tactility. The jacket’s canvas resists uniformity; the hoodie’s fleece carries the grain of its knitting; even the tee’s pocket is slightly off-center, as though tailored for someone who works rather than poses. The message is clear: this is fashion grounded in physicality, not spectacle.
Visually, the palette remains muted—charcoal, khaki, cement, and washed green—accented by that singular festival neon. The restraint gives the garments longevity, designed to sit comfortably in a rotation for years rather than weeks.
culture
In 2025, fashion collaborations are everywhere, but few feel as deliberate as this. Carhartt WIP × Nike avoids gimmicks, instead using design to comment on shared history. Carhartt’s reputation for honesty in materials intersects perfectly with Nike’s legacy of technical evolution. Both brands began by solving problems: one keeping laborers warm, the other helping athletes move faster. That lineage grounds the capsule in something deeper than surface aesthetics.
The SURPLUS® context reinforces this ethos. Amid a festival celebrating craftsmanship and culture, the garments become artifacts of connection—between work and play, between durability and performance, between American industrial heritage and global street culture. They remind consumers that authenticity in design often emerges from collaboration grounded in purpose, not marketing noise.
flow
The absence of footwear in this capsule surprised many. Historically, Carhartt WIP × Nike collaborations have included memorable sneakers—the Air Force 1 Utility, the Air VaporMax 2018. By removing sneakers from the conversation, the brands redirected attention to apparel craftsmanship, a move that feels almost rebellious in a sneaker-driven market.
That restraint has fuelled speculation about what might come next. Could SURPLUS® 2025 be a prelude to a wider relaunch of the partnership? Will a footwear extension follow in 2026? Neither brand has said, but industry observers read the event as a soft reset: proof that collaboration can return to small-batch quality and still resonate globally.
impression
What makes the Carhartt WIP × Nike SURPLUS® 2025 collection compelling is its balance of modesty and intent. There is no attempt to outshine previous partnerships or dominate social feeds. Instead, it recaptures the core energy that first made these brands influential: material honesty, cultural awareness, and respect for the people who actually wear the clothes.
In a marketplace driven by fast drops and instant obsolescence, this capsule feels almost timeless. The garments aren’t designed to chase attention—they’re designed to live, to be worn, to mark a moment. Whether hanging on a rack in Sydney or circulating on secondary markets months later, they carry a trace of their origin: the sound of music from the festival grounds, the salt of ocean air, the crowd queuing before dawn.
For Carhartt WIP and Nike, SURPLUS® 2025 represents a recalibration. It’s a reminder that the most enduring collaborations don’t shout; they work quietly, stitching together history, craft, and place into clothes that mean something long after the hype fades.
No comments yet.
