Ben Davis and POGGY Blend Archive Workwear With Japanese Craftsmanship in New Capsule

Ben Davis has been building clothes for people who work with their hands since 1935, when the San Francisco brand first put 10.5-ounce poly-cotton twill through its paces on job sites up and down the California coast. The formula was brutally simple: full-cut trousers engineered for mobility, half-zip work shirts designed to layer under safety vests, and hardware built to hold through a double shift. Fashion curator Motofumi "POGGY" Kogi knows these codes well enough to bend them.

"Work in Many Forms," the second collaboration between POGGY and Ben Davis, landed on April 10 across THE GROUND depot in Osaka, BENCH AT THE GREENE in Tokyo, and the official Ben Davis webstore. Nine pieces, produced entirely in Japan, it builds on the pair's first drop from October 2025, which marked the brand's 90th anniversary. Where that initial capsule celebrated the archive, this one pushes it forward.

The anchor is a tailored denim jacket and wide-leg matching pants, pieces that sit at the center of POGGY's personal styling philosophy. The Japanese denim carries beige weft yarns woven into its structure, producing a deadstock-like texture: a surface that reads as already broken-in, already carrying some weight. The wide leg is borrowed from the original Ben Davis work pant's full-cut logic, where freedom of movement was the utilitarian argument. Here it doubles as a silhouette that reads confidently in a studio or a meeting room. The outfit formula is direct: denim jacket, matching wide-leg pants, a clean white work shirt beneath, leather lug-sole boots. Jobsite architecture, contemporary proportion, no costume energy.

For layering, the collection offers a 1970s archive-inspired denim work vest, modernized in cut but faithful to its source material. Worn over a heavyweight mock neck with the jacket shed, it adds structure and pocketing for the gap between an outdoor commute and an air-conditioned office without the commitment of a full coat. The vest's utility pockets function, not decorate. On a travel day, the wide-leg pants paired with the vest over a fitted knit reduces the outfit to its working parts: practical pocket space, ease of movement through transit, a silhouette that holds its line after hours in a seat.

The hardware is where the collection's precision becomes most apparent. Silver-tone dot buttons stamped with Ben Davis's iconic red gorilla motif return across the capsule for the first time in 25 years. They catch light without announcing themselves, the kind of detail visible only to people who know to look. A vintage yellow brand name label, printed rather than woven, from the 1970s appears across all nine pieces. On select garments, artist Ryo Uchiyama contributes custom calligraphy, anchoring the collection's Japanese production in Japanese visual culture rather than treating manufacture as a mere sourcing decision.

The collection's stated reference for authenticity is a Japanese carpenter's naturally faded, 10-year-old work pants: a garment that has documented its own use over time. The beige weft yarns in the denim set are designed to accelerate that story, to give each piece a starting point that most new garments spend years working toward. Ben Davis clothes have always been meant to age. This capsule just begins a little further down the road.