If you heard anything about Mister Freedom in the past couple months, it likely wasn’t very good. After some backlash over the racist overtones in pieces from Cristophe Loiron’s “Saigon Cowboy” collection, he halted production and made changes to the final pieces. Apparently, he was attempting to portray duality and the absurdity of war through the collection, but unlike Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, the message was sort of lost in translation.
He has since apologized and the collection has been recently released with some thoughtful revisions made. It takes influence from the Vietnam War era with many a camo print and overall tropical feel. Many of the pieces use HBT (herringbone twill) including 3 different HBT fabrics used to make a set of jackets and pants.
For this collection, we only see a single piece made with raw denim, the Utility Jacket. Made from a neppy 10 oz. 2×1 selvedge denim, this jacket is a classic Mister Freedom piece inspired by a US Army M1941 Utility Jacket. The fabric itself is military spec, taken from a stack of vintage military denim from the MF archives and reproduced in Japan through Sugar Cane. Details include black metal 13 star buttons, side cinches, gusseted armpits (which the MF copy talks about at length), and selvedge details throughout.
The gaffe has certainly lost customers for Mr. Loiron, and an apology and subsequent removal of certain racially insensitive patches may not be enough for people to return. Will it be enough for you? If so, check out the entire collection at the Mister Freedom website.
