Acronym: Vision of The Future, Today.
“If you don’t like what you’re seeing, — change the view point.” — Errolson Hugh.
There are few who like clothes and there are other small few who are obsessive about it down to the material and intricate little details. Errolson Hugh is one of the latter. Started as a design agency, his eponymous label “ACRONYM” has generated cult followings in these past few years with the technical aspect as their main appeal along with extreme usability. It’s also endorsed by the world’s big names such as John Mayer, Jason Statham, William Gibson (the godfather of the cyberpunk genre), and even Bill Clinton was seen rolling around with Acronym P-24 pants in olive.
Errolson is pushing all the possible boundaries when it comes to clothing. Even a few decades back in 2002 when his analog MD jacket was named TIME Magazine’s “Coolest Inventions of 2002.” The jacket itself doesn’t look out of place with the rest of ACRONYM’s stuff today. That really says something about the brand and its ethos of sustainable clothing and small refinements over the years. Even Errolson himself said that ACRONYM is a slow evolutionary process in a GQ’s Corporate Lunch podcast recently.
He’s also worked with the world’s top brands such as Nike (the ACG line a few years back) and Stone Island with their ‘Shadow Project’ line. They look pretty different from mainline ACRONYM as Errolson said in Business of Hype’s podcast that some things couldn’t be done in either one of them because each company has certain advantages and disadvantages. One of the examples he gave is the way he made a layering system for Stone Island utilizing all the advantages that can’t be done otherwise in ACRONYM or Nike. That being said, you can definitely see a little bit (or much) of Errolson’s handiwork on their products, even today.
My personal experience with anything related to ACRONYM is pretty minimal, although it changes the way I thought about clothing and how far can we push them to their utmost limit (and further, even). I own a pair of cool grey Nike Acronym Presto and wearing it at the time of writing this. It’s my current favorite shoes (ever, possibly) and my most worn shoes. Maybe a visualization works better to emphasize how the shoes changed my daily routine:
So, my day usually starts at 9 A.M. I woke up and then went to shower right away for some cold shower. Black tees, black cargos (or denim when I feel like it) are the norm and maybe I’ll throw some outer if it’s a cold day. I usually skip breakfast for lunch, but when I do, I usually make something quick enough: Sunnyside up most of the time. Then I’ll go to my social media for quick updates of what’s going on before finally pack my stuff and leave. When I don’t want to think of what shoes to wear, I’ll go straight to my Acronym Presto, zip it up, and go. The whole process took me less than 1 minute. Crazy, huh? Not to mention my feet won’t feel sore when I’m wearing it both for indoor or outdoor activities.
The shoes are through and through engineered for actual people with high mobility, carefully constructed for maximum efficiency. The zippers also have a locking mechanism in order to prevent it from going down just by flicking them downward. It’s the shoes of my choice for almost every occasion ever since I got it and when it eventually broke down, I’ll get a new pair. That’s how good the shoes are.
Errolson’s ingenuity truly shows in just a pair of well-designed shoes. I expect the same thing from his mainline ACRONYM stuff. From what I have heard, they are as ingenious as the shoes. I’ve seen the “ACRONYM JUTSU” video on YouTube featuring the J1A-GT, one of ACRONYM’s most popular models as it features a crazy amount of compartments and modularity. From the video alone I can see how carefully constructed the jacket is. Some compare it to Apple’s ecosystem as in tough getting used to, but when you do you’ll wonder how you were able to live without them before. Both of them simplifies every process and offer maximum usability. Dare I say he with ACRONYM kickstarted the whole techwear trend. He is the grandfather of techwear.
The way ACRONYM operates echoes the spirit of anti-fashion of the late 80s. It’s against everything that fashion stood out for with long-lasting design + materials. It operates outside the normal fashion calendar, slowly tweaking each one of his products and treating it as a part of an evolutionary process. In a way, ACRONYM is a tech/design company instead of fashion/garment that focused on churning out more products in the shortest time possible.
Naturally, the advent of techwear brought out a surge of ACRONYM-esque brands but with inferior attention to detail and quality. Even people want to create something like ACRONYM with a lower price bracket. However, all of them missed one thing that made ACRONYM such a sought-after brand: The actual innovation and passion. I’m not saying all of them are bad, but they really missed the spirit of ACRONYM (or Errolson).
ACRONYM proves that there’s a place for good design and functionality to intersect without sacrificing each one of them. In a way, ACRONYM’s products are the embodiment of Dieter Rams’ ten principles of good design taken to an extreme end of the spectrum. In a world filled with a façade of technicalities, Errolson proved that we can take the concept of functional clothing even further.
I, for one, admire Errolson and his works. The price is a bit steep so I probably won’t be able to afford his mainline stuff in near future. However, when I finally have the means to, I would gladly buy all of ACRONYM’s apparel and wear them until they eventually broke down, repair them, wear them again, and get the new one when it’s not possible to repair it anymore as Errolson himself intended.
I will keep my eyes up for whatever project Errolson going to undertake next. I know it’s going to be damn good, but I just want to know how Errolson Hugh, the cyber ninja from dystopic future gonna surprise me with next.
