The North Face collaborates with artist Shantell Martin

Outerwear giant The North Face has unveiled its collaboration with British visual artist Shantell Martin, with the two co-designing a new collection of sportswear and expedition gear.

Items take inspiration from archival pieces of the brand’s previous Search and Rescue collection, initially designed for the purpose of search and rescue mountain teams, with designs utilising material technology to ensure safety of the wearer. The artist reimagines the collection using her illustrative techniques throughout a number of the designs.

Buyers can opt for items to come in either a plain colour or Martin’s signature black and white linear illustration style, available for six of the designs in the collection.

Pieces include jogging trousers, parkas, fleeces, t-shirts and hoodies made for mountain exploration, produced as a continuation of the brand’s original Search and Rescue edit. At the heart of the collection is an Oversized Sherpa Fleece, made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled polyester and available in a print by the artist.

Through it’s online webshop, The North Face have launched a page dedicated to the collection, with photos of Martin’s wearing various items, interactive imagery and a video sharing Martin’s inspiration for her designs.

“The specific drawing I have done for this, its about this idea of challenging yourself and climbing and expressing yourself in life,” Martin explains, in the video shared alongside the collection. “Searching is such a huge task, but also, I think, is rescuing. Rescuing is unveiling, is making things transparent, is making things accountable. It’s seeing things as they are and accepting what they should be.”