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Wrangler and Avirex Unite Western Denim With Military Flight Heritage

Wrangler x Avirex dropped a seven-piece capsule running from a $130 tee to a $1,700 suede leather trucker heavy with dual-brand patches.

Mia Chen2 min read
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Wrangler and Avirex Unite Western Denim With Military Flight Heritage
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Avirex Creative Director Mia Dell'Osso-Caputo put it plainly: "Wrangler is the authority of the West, and Avirex owns the sky and the street." The seven-piece limited-edition capsule the two brands launched makes that case in leather and denim, pulling from Wrangler's 75-plus years of Western workwear and Avirex's 1975 origins crafting authentic military flight jackets before the brand became a full-blown hip-hop status symbol through the late 1980s and '90s.

The anchor piece is the Suede Trucker Jacket in black, built from 100% leather with front button closures, side seam pockets, and all-over black-and-white patches spotlighting both brand identities. At $1,699.99, it sits at the top of a price range that bottoms out at $129.99 for a regular-fit tee. The rest of the seven pieces fill the space between: a patch-heavy denim trucker inspired by classic trucker silhouettes, barrel jeans offered in both traditional Wrangler blue and coated black denim, a heavyweight hoodie, and joggers. The hoodie and joggers carry the same design vocabulary as the tee, featuring western-inspired embroidery and co-branded graphics throughout.

The cultural timing here is not accidental. Throwback '90s and noughties style has pushed its way back into the mainstream, and legacy brands with deep archives have the receipts to capitalize. Wrangler and Avirex are leaning hard into exactly that logic, pairing denim silhouettes with bold leather details and vintage-style patchwork rather than chasing any sustainability narrative. The release messaging focuses entirely on durability and archival influence, which is a choice worth noting given how loudly the broader industry has been talking about materials sourcing.

Holly Wheeler, Vice President of Global Brand Marketing at Kontoor Brands, Wrangler's parent company, framed the collab as a deliberate move upmarket: "Expanding our reach into a more premium space while continuing to celebrate the breadth of collaborations that make Wrangler such a dynamic global brand." Dell'Osso-Caputo's language was blunter and better: "We created a new uniform for people who move with purpose and value authenticity above all else."

The full capsule is available through both the Wrangler and Avirex online stores, with prices spanning $129.99 to $1,699.99. For context, that upper number translates to roughly £1,264 or AU$2,373. Whether the suede trucker can justify nearly $1,700 against what the wider leather outerwear market is offering at that price point is a fair question, but the patchwork story and the dual-archive positioning give it a cultural argument that straightforward luxury brands cannot easily replicate.

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