Fred Perry and Kris Van Assche Launch 13-Piece Uniform of Youth Capsule

Fred Perry and Kris Van Assche launched a 13-piece capsule titled "Uniform of Youth," priced between €80 and €450, with a global release on February 19, 2026 and press activity through February 19–23, 2026. The collection is available at selected Fred Perry flagship stores across Europe including London, and in Tokyo, Shanghai, Delhi and Sydney, as well as online at fredperry.com and through select wholesale partners.

Kris Van Assche, the Belgian designer and former Artistic Director of Dior Homme and Berluti, framed the collaboration as a return to familiar imagery and archive motifs. Van Assche said, "Sports and diverse youth subcultural identities have been a major source of inspiration," and added, "Fred Perry stands for that." He described the project as coming full circle: "So in a way this feels like coming full circle," and recounted finding a flower motif in the archives that he reworked in black and white for the capsule.

The collection deliberately blurs sportswear and tailoring through a small, exact edit. Van Assche rebuilt classic pieces into new silhouettes: a pinstriped "track suit" that reads as a tailored pinstriped suit; a pinstriped track jacket styled with both matching pants and a skirt; a pre-tied polo; and a bold red Fred Perry cotton shirt bearing a floral insignia and three badges described as undeniably punk. Trompe l'oeil knitwear plays a key role, including a short-sleeved V-neck jumper in black, grey and red Argyle that creates the illusion of a shirt beneath, and a long-sleeved floral grid jumper that mimics a layer worn over a zipped-up track jacket.

Technical hybrids punctuate the line. Hypebeast highlighted a "sweat-shirt" that blends a half-zip with poplin sleeves, and Clash described it as a "sweater-shirt" with the same half-zip and poplin-sleeve treatment. Staples include a simple black cap, a striped track jacket, track pants, a sporty skirt, a casual blazer, shorts and a traditional-pattern sweater, all curated to fit into the 13-piece limit that Van Assche acknowledged required extreme editorial precision.

Van Assche articulated the project as an act of elevation and rule-bending: "I wanted to elevate the uniform of youth - take the Fred Perry pieces and rebuild them as to erase the frontier between sports and elevated." Hypebeast framed his approach as an effort to "break the rules" by deconstructing and rebuilding staples like the Fred Perry shirt and the track jacket. He also reflected on his career shift, saying, "I felt a certain relief in stepping away from the rollercoaster I had been on for nearly 20 years," a context that helps explain the capsule's compact, meticulous focus.

The campaign imagery, photographed by Alasdair McLellan with additional credit to Mauricio Nardi, presents the pieces outdoors on grass under a bright London sun, a staging Clash described as "ethereally classic" that shows the clothes in active, daylight wear. With a tight, priced range of €80–€450 and distribution aimed at flagship boutiques in major cities plus online, the Uniform of Youth reads as a deliberate, small-scale reworking of Fred Perry archetypes and a precision exercise in cross-gender tailoring that stakes out a new, edited direction for both Van Assche and the heritage brand.