Aries and Champion Debut Boxing-Inspired Capsule in Aged Deadstock Jerseys

Aries and Champion met at the perfect pressure point: old-school athletic heritage colliding with Aries’ sharp, abrasive graphic language. The result is a 10-piece capsule that takes Champion’s familiar Reverse Weave vocabulary and pushes it into a far more confrontational register, using deadstock jerseys, heavy wash treatments and boxing references to make the brand feel newly dangerous again.

This is the first collaboration between Aries and Champion, and it reads like a smart reset rather than a straightforward logo swap. Aries built the collection around unisex styles in black, gray, navy and red, then aged the fabrics until they looked worn in rather than newly manufactured. The pieces use brushed-back cotton-mix jersey fleece, archival and new collaboration graphics, overdyed grey marl bases and washes that give the clothes a bruised, lived-in finish. That tactile aging matters here: it softens the sportswear silhouette just enough to make the graphics hit harder.

The campaign sharpens the concept further. Photographed by Douglas Irvine, it features Champion athletes and professional boxers Harlem Eubank and Tiah Mai Ayton, casting the capsule in a world of discipline, resilience and controlled aggression. Aries framed the project as a reinterpretation of classic sportswear rooted in “the raw physicality and spirit of boxing,” and Sofia Prantera put the intention bluntly, saying she has long loved vintage Champion for its authenticity and wanted to push that heritage into something “more confrontational.” That is exactly the right instinct. Champion has spent more than a century building a reputation around utility and recognition, and Aries knows how to turn that familiarity into friction.

The timing also makes sense. Champion, founded in 1919 and instantly recognizable for its “C” logo, has long been fertile ground for collaboration, from Supreme to Todd Snyder. After HanesBrands sold the global Champion business to Authentic Brands Group in June 2024 in a deal valued at $1.2 billion, with the potential to reach $1.5 billion, the label has every reason to keep testing new cultural positions. Aries, founded in 2009 by Sofia Prantera and Fergus Purcell, arrives with the kind of hand-dyeing, printing and hand-finished construction that gives sportswear a more authored, less generic edge.

The collection launched in the U.K. on Thursday, April 8, with prices ranging from £79 to £175, and is available through Aries’ London flagship, Champion stores in Soho and Manchester Arndale, online and select wholesale partners globally. In a market crowded with retro-athletic nostalgia, Aries and Champion chose the better route: they made the archive look unsettled.