Banana Republic Reissued Some of the Greatest Gorpcore in Vintage History

Menswear writers love to say shit like “Banana Republic needs no introduction” and then spend the next 250 words introducing Banana Republic. So for everybody’s sake, let’s skip the preamble where we wax on about the retailer’s good-again office gear, and provide a little bit of context instead. Because Banana Republic might not need introducing, but its Archive Reissue line warrants a little explaining.

Here’s the deal: Before BR was a reliable source of blessedly non-cursed 9-to-5 clothing, it was a bona fide outdoors outfitter hawking some of the sickest functional gear on the planet—gear that had long sat gathering dust in the brand’s archives, a bummer for anyone into the type of deeply influential proto-gorpcore we keep talking about right now.

That changes today. After testing the waters with a series of long-since-sold-out vintage releases, BR is teaming up with the vaunted adventurers at the Explorers Club to reproduce some of the greatest hits from its nearly 50-year run. This, to put it mildly, is a big deal, and not just for the type of vintage nerds that lust after the brand’s hard-to-find early designs.

“We started with the idea of putting together a collection centered around rarely seen pieces with unexpected details,” said Jemma Cassidy, Banana Republic’s chief product officer. And man, the team delivered on that premise and then some.

For the first time in decades, you can nab a painstakingly reproduced version of the BR packable jacket, which famously—and niftily—folds into a fully-functional tote. (Why did we as a culture stray so far from coats that turn into bags? They seem like something we should’ve leaned into, not phased out.) Or grab one of the brand’s iconic field shirts, which boasts a pocket configuration so elaborate it’d make a filing cabinet blush. Or snag the iconic desert bucket hat, a longstanding template for countless bucket hats that followed it.

Every item in the 18-piece men’s collection is, as Cassidy notes, an attempt to “replicate the original as much as possible, while allowing for modern tweaks,” a commitment that extends to the very labels used throughout, each a near-identical replica of the source material.

Keep scrolling to see what we’re adding to our carts, or head on over to Banana Republic to ogle the Archive Reissue line in its entirety.