For more than six decades, Alpha Industries has transformed military precision into enduring cultural style. JiyongKim, the Seoul-based label founded by designer Jiyong Kim, approaches clothing from a different—but complementary—perspective: allowing sunlight, weather and time to leave their mark on meticulously constructed garments.
Since first collaborating for Fall/Winter 2024, Alpha Industries and JiyongKim have built a partnership around experimentation, craftsmanship and the continued evolution of military-inspired clothing. Fall/Winter 2026 marks the fifth chapter in that relationship.
Across five seasonal collections, JiyongKim has reinterpreted Alpha Industries flight jackets, field jackets, parkas and utility pieces through sculptural pattern cutting, unexpected proportions and its signature Sun-Bleach process. The result is a series of garments that feel both familiar and entirely individual: Alpha heritage, redesigned by nature.
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Who Is Jiyong Kim?
Jiyong Kim is a South Korean menswear designer and the founder and creative director of JiyongKim.
Before launching his namesake brand, Kim studied at Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo and Central Saint Martins in London. His professional experience included work with Lemaire and Louis Vuitton during Virgil Abloh’s tenure, exposing him to both precise garment construction and global luxury brand building.
JiyongKim emerged from Kim’s 2021 Central Saint Martins graduate collection, Daylight Matters. Created with vintage garments, antique textiles and discarded fabric, the collection explored whether fading and environmental exposure could add value to materials that might otherwise be overlooked.
That project introduced the technique that would become the label’s signature: Sun-Bleach.
Since its launch, JiyongKim has earned international recognition for its experimental menswear, dimensional silhouettes and nature-driven finishing. Kim was named a semifinalist for the 2024 LVMH Prize, and the label has been carried by influential fashion retailers around the world.
What Is JiyongKim’s Sun-Bleach Process?
The Sun-Bleach process uses sunlight and changing weather conditions to naturally fade garments and fabric.
Pieces may be folded, tied, wrapped, partially covered or attached to outdoor structures before being left in the elements for an extended period. Sunlight gradually changes the exposed areas, while covered sections retain more of their original color. Wind, rain, temperature, fabric composition and the length of exposure can all influence the finished appearance.
The process can take weeks or months. Because weather cannot be perfectly controlled, no two genuinely sun-bleached garments develop in exactly the same way.
What might ordinarily be considered discoloration becomes the defining feature of the piece. Each tonal shift documents how the garment was positioned, protected and exposed during its creation.
JiyongKim’s approach is sometimes mistaken for a printed or artificially distressed finish. In reality, the variation is produced through time and natural exposure. It is a slow process that cannot simply be accelerated or replicated at unlimited scale.
For the Alpha Industries partnership, Sun-Bleach turns iconic military garments into individual artifacts.
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Why Alpha Industries and JiyongKim Work Together
At the center of the partnership is a shared respect for functional design.
Alpha Industries began producing military outerwear in 1959. The company received early U.S. Department of Defense contracts for cold-weather outerwear and later became closely associated with the MA-1 flight jacket, N-2B parka and M-65 field coat. These garments were engineered around specific functional requirements, from warmth and mobility to weather resistance and storage.
JiyongKim also treats function as a source of design. Dimensional pockets, adjustable cords, detachable components, layered panels and articulated seams help determine how its clothes look and move.
This shared foundation gives JiyongKim meaningful material to reinterpret. An Alpha jacket is not a blank surface awaiting a new logo. It is an established object with its own history, construction and purpose.
The collaboration brings two contrasting philosophies together:
● Alpha’s military garments were originally defined by uniformity; Sun-Bleach makes each piece individual.
● Alpha designed clothing to protect its wearer from the elements; JiyongKim invites those elements into the design process.
● Alpha contributes recognizable military specifications; JiyongKim reshapes them through draping, volume and experimental pattern work.
● Alpha’s archive provides continuity; natural exposure ensures that every garment carries variation.
The outcome respects the original function while showing how far an established silhouette can evolve.
Five Seasons of Alpha Industries × JiyongKim
Fall/Winter 2024: The First Collaboration
Alpha Industries and JiyongKim launched their first collaboration for Fall/Winter 2024.
The debut introduced the creative formula that would guide the partnership: Alpha military archetypes reconstructed through JiyongKim’s sculptural silhouettes, experimental patterns and naturally weathered finishes.
The collection included a Sun-Bleached Heavy Fishtail Parka, a reinterpreted N-2B flight jacket, a military-detail hoodie and cargo trousers.
The fishtail parka emphasized Kim’s structural pattern work, while the N-2B was given a more voluminous shape and bolder proportions. The hoodie and cargo trousers extended the collaboration beyond statement outerwear, translating military details into a more complete wardrobe.
The first collection demonstrated that the Sun-Bleach process could do more than visually distress an archive style. By combining fading with altered proportions, pockets, panels and construction, JiyongKim created a new identity for each garment.
Spring/Summer 2025: Flight and Movement
For Spring/Summer 2025, the partnership focused on two complementary pieces: the Sun-Bleached Flight Bomber and Curved Multi-Pocket Trousers.
The flight bomber connected directly to Alpha Industries’ aviation heritage. Its recognizable bomber construction was transformed through a lived-in surface and JiyongKim’s approach to volume.
The trousers translated military utility into a sculptural lower-body silhouette. Curved seams, exaggerated lines and dimensional storage pockets created shape while retaining a clear functional character. Offered alongside the bomber, the trousers helped turn the collaboration into a complete look rather than a single statement jacket.
The SS25 pieces also appeared within JiyongKim’s broader seasonal collection. Surrounded by the label’s draped tailoring, curved trousers and other sun-bleached garments, the Alpha collaboration became part of JiyongKim’s design world while remaining visibly grounded in military apparel.
Fall/Winter 2025: Utility in Layers
Fall/Winter 2025 expanded the collaboration through a Sun-Bleached Detachable-Hood Fishtail Coat, Sun-Bleached Deck Jacket and Double-Front Trousers.
The collection explored cold-weather utility through overlapping construction and adaptable components.
The deck jacket combined a substantial outerwear silhouette with three-dimensional side pockets, a shearling-lined body, insulated sleeves, ribbed cuffs, horn buttons and removable sun-bleached patches. Those patches allowed the fading process to function as a physical layer within the garment rather than simply an all-over surface treatment.
The Double-Front Trousers featured a layered front panel secured with horn buttons, concealed under-panel pockets and an adjustable waist belt. The design turned a familiar workwear shape into something architectural without sacrificing utility.
The detachable-hood fishtail coat continued the conversation established in FW24, returning to a foundational military silhouette with a more developed understanding of how Sun-Bleach, volume and transformable construction could work together.
Spring/Summer 2026: Reconstructing the Field Uniform
Spring/Summer 2026 became the partnership’s most expansive collection to date.
The assortment included a Sun-Bleached Field Jacket, Wide-Collar Jacket, Liner Jacket, Anorak and Multi-Pocket Pants, along with additional curved trouser variations.
The Field Jacket reimagined classic military utility through four dimensional cargo pockets, a concealable hood, adjustable drawstrings, a sleeve pocket and carabiner detailing. Sun-bleached sections across the upper back and sleeve added natural variation while emphasizing the jacket’s paneled construction.
The Wide-Collar Jacket used a double fastening system and patch details to create a distinctive shape. The Liner Jacket revisited another familiar component of military layering, elevating a garment traditionally worn beneath a field coat. The Anorak continued the focus on adjustable protection, while the trousers combined wide proportions, dimensional darts, cargo pockets, drawcords and hardware.
Together, the pieces brought the partnership especially close to Alpha Industries’ field-uniform heritage. The collection retained the logic of functional equipment while changing how that equipment occupied space around the body.
Fall/Winter 2026: The Fifth Chapter
Fall/Winter 2026 marks the fifth Alpha Industries × JiyongKim collaboration.
The new chapter returns to Alpha’s flight heritage with the Sun-Bleached Split-Hood Flight Jacket, presented in black and brown. Its split hood recalls the functional construction associated with Alpha’s cold-weather flight parkas, while its naturally faded finish gives every piece an individual identity.
The garment represents the progression of the partnership across five seasons. What began as an encounter between military outerwear and Sun-Bleach has developed into a recognizable shared language of flight references, transformable components, sculptural proportions and weather-shaped surfaces.
FW26 is not simply another reinterpretation of an archival jacket. It is the continuation of a long-term design conversation—one in which both partners now understand how to preserve the identity of the original garment while pushing its construction and finish somewhere new.
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Details That Set the Collaboration Apart
Many fashion collaborations rely on graphics, color changes or co-branded logos to distinguish an existing product. Alpha Industries × JiyongKim begins at the level of the garment itself.
Natural, unrepeatable fading
The signature appearance is produced through actual environmental exposure. Variation is an inherent part of the process, meaning each sun-bleached piece carries its own pattern and tonal character.
Sculptural pattern cutting
Curved seams, wide proportions, oversized pockets, layered fronts and three-dimensional panels affect how the garments look both on and off the body.
Functional military components
Concealable and detachable hoods, adjustable hems, cargo pockets, insulated linings, carabiners and layered closures maintain the practical vocabulary of Alpha’s archive.
Elevated material details
Horn buttons, cotton cords, substantial linings, branded zippers and carefully constructed panels give the products a tactile depth that rewards close inspection.
Authentic scarcity
The Sun-Bleach process depends on time and weather. Production cannot be expanded as quickly as a printed finish, making limited availability a consequence of how the garments are created.
Made in Korea
Collaboration products identified through Alpha Industries and JiyongKim’s product information are made in Korea, connecting the collection to JiyongKim’s Seoul-based creative practice and production network.
Who Is the Alpha Industries × JiyongKim Customer?
The collaboration speaks to customers who understand clothing as both a functional object and a form of creative expression.
That audience includes longtime Alpha collectors, followers of Korean fashion, designer-menswear customers, streetwear enthusiasts and buyers drawn to experimental pattern cutting. It also appeals to people who want recognizable garments that do not feel interchangeable with everything else in their wardrobe.
A customer may initially recognize an Alpha flight jacket or field jacket. A closer look reveals irregular fading, unexpected panel placement, hidden storage, adjustable construction and a silhouette that changes as it moves.
The relaxed and oversized proportions also allow many of the pieces to be styled across traditional menswear and womenswear categories. Their military foundation makes them familiar, while their construction gives them a distinctly contemporary presence.
Why Collectors Keep Coming Back
Each Alpha Industries × JiyongKim season is part of the same story, but no season simply repeats the previous one.
The collaboration has moved from fishtail parkas and the N-2B to bombers, curved trousers, deck jackets, field jackets, liners, anoraks and the FW26 Split-Hood Flight Jacket. Customers can follow how the relationship evolves while building an archive of interconnected pieces.
Collectors return for several reasons:
● Every season introduces a different part of Alpha’s military archive.
● Genuine natural fading gives each garment individual variation.
● JiyongKim’s pattern work creates recognizable silhouettes.
● Functional details make the pieces wearable, not merely conceptual.
● Limited production strengthens their long-term collectibility.
● Each release represents another stage in an ongoing partnership.
There is also an emotional quality to clothing shaped by time. The garment already carries the visual evidence of its creation when it reaches the customer, then continues to change as it is worn.
Military Heritage, Transformed by Time
The story of Alpha Industries × JiyongKim is ultimately a story about transformation.
Alpha Industries supplies garments with authentic history—flight jackets, field coats and parkas originally shaped by practical demands. JiyongKim studies those objects, changes their proportions and construction, and lets the natural environment complete their surfaces.
The finished pieces hold several histories at once: the history of Alpha’s military manufacturing, the history of Jiyong Kim’s experimental practice and the individual record of every garment’s exposure to the elements.
Five collaborations in, the partnership has become more than a meeting between two brands. It is a sustained exploration of what happens when specification meets unpredictability, when a uniform becomes individual and when an icon is redesigned by the sun.