Dickies, semoh and Urban Research update Eisenhower jacket in Japan-first capsule

Dickies has taken one of its most familiar workwear signatures and pushed it into sharper, more artful territory with a Japan-first capsule built around the Eisenhower jacket. The collaboration with semoh and Urban Research keeps the silhouette rooted in utility, but the details move it decisively upmarket: black and gray colorways, horn buttons, a co-branded lining label and a back-body silkscreen print drawn from an image in Tim Barber’s book Blues.

The capsule first went on sale at URBAN RESEARCH KYOTO on April 17, with a wider release set for April 21 through Urban Research’s official online store and physical locations. That rollout matters as much as the clothes themselves. Rather than treating the jacket as a routine reissue, the partners have made Kyoto the point of entry for a product that sits between heritage workwear and gallery-minded fashion. URBAN RESEARCH KYOTO’s TINYVICES ARCHIVES event, which runs through May 6, gives the launch a cultural frame that feels intentional rather than decorative.

The Eisenhower jacket remains the headline. Urban Research says the cut preserves the original sizing while updating the collar with contrast coloring, a small intervention that changes the jacket’s read from pure utility to something more tailored and stylized. Dickies says it has been making workwear since 1922, and the Eisenhower has been one of its long-running icons for more than half a century. In a market full of logo-heavy reworks, this one is more disciplined: familiar proportions, cleaner finishing, and a print that ties the garment to Tim Barber’s archive of photography and artist-led ephemera.

The matching 5-pocket pants carry the same hybrid logic. They are cut from Dickies’ cotton/polyester twill, but semoh has shaped them into a slightly flared silhouette, giving the trouser line a little swing without abandoning workwear function. That move is classic semoh, the Japanese label founded by Hiroyuki Ueyama, whose background in textiles and vintage clothing shows in the way old references are recut rather than merely copied. Priced at ¥39,600 for the jacket and ¥30,800 for the pants, the set is clearly aimed above Dickies’ everyday staples. It is also a sign of strategy: instead of just reissuing basics, Dickies is using regional partners like Urban Research and semoh to turn a workwear icon into something culturally specific, collectible and just a touch more precious.