This season, London-based menswear label Folk is building on that legacy, albeit in keeping with its commitment to thoughtful, quiet design. Which is to say that the brand hasn’t tapped a globally renowned “starchitect” or taken cues from the silhouette of a flash skyscraper for AW21. Instead, it’s elected to team up with the Architectural Association’s secluded woodland campus. Set across 350 acres in rural Dorset, Hooke Park is an outdoor laboratory of sorts, where architects-in-training can bring their sketches to reality. With its sculpturesque timber lodges, high-tech indoor workshops and organic kitchen garden, the guiding principles of the site are innovation, community and sustainability – all of which chimes perfectly with the Folk ethos.

The meeting of minds came about somewhat serendipitously ­– with a pre-pandemic visit to scope out the space’s potential as a campaign backdrop. “A friend of the brand knows the area and had waxed on about the Star Wars-meets-commune vibe,” says Mr Cathal McAteer, Folk’s founder and creative director. “But we were so inspired by the AA’s innovation and the style of the campus that we wanted to dig deeper and find out more about the people and the purpose behind it.”

What the Folk team discovered was a design soulmate in both “aesthetics and spirit”, and the photoshoot soon blossomed into an outdoorsy capsule collection tailored to the needs of the Hooke Park trainees. “The fact that it’s an educational body and a clothing brand [coming together] is pretty cool,” says McAteer of the partnership. “It’s definitely not your average fashion collab.”

Fans of Folk will notice the resulting collection leans more heavily into the brand’s utilitarian side. That’s because while Hooke Park may look a little like a futuristic eco-retreat, it’s more like a leafy construction site, where students can be found drilling, sanding and sawing, which calls for high-performing, hard-wearing clothing that can keep up. “They live ‘off-grid’ in the park [where] it gets mighty cold. They do a lot of heavy-lifting, they need layers that are easy to piece together,” says McAteer of the many boxes the garments had to tick.

Alongside requiring insulating fabrics and capacious pockets, the architects were keen to see reinforcement in “key stress points” – hence why the aptly named Work Pant comes with “laid in” knee pads. Meanwhile, low visibility in the autumn forest mizzle inspired the industrial orange accents (a detail that’s sure to please the bike-loving, city-dwelling Folk devotees).

There’s no doubt that these are expertly engineered clothes – the sort where no zip, button or pocket is there by chance, and where the palette of pine greens, warm tans and soft greys echoes the woodland setting. The collaboration also reveals new-season updates on Folk staples, such as an intricately ribbed reworking of the signature Patrice crew-neck sweater in an organic cotton and wool blend (McAteer’s favourite piece). From the oat flannel shirts to the canvas jackets, they’re the sort of sturdy-yet-stylish investment pieces you’re bound to get acres of wear out of.

As the next generation of architects who’ll eventually go on to shape the built environment, the Hooke Park students are a sustainably minded bunch. It makes sense, then, that a handful of garments come crafted from repurposed materials, such as its lightly wadded Reversible Liner (on one side Japanese brushed cotton, on the other recycled nylon). Still, it’s worth mentioning that Folk hasn’t just hopped on board the eco train for a season – environmental responsibility has long been stitched into the brand’s philosophy. But joining forces with Hooke Park has spurred the design team to ramp up its commitment to planet-friendly fashion.

“We’ve always taken the responsibility of being a ‘maker’ very seriously,” says McAteer. “But the Hooke Park approach is our new benchmark.”