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Peter Do’s earliest encounters with Banana Republic came in 2004, when his family moved from Vietnam to suburban Philadelphia. At home in Biên Hòa, north of Ho Chi Minh City, his grandmother had taught him to sew buttons and patch holes on an old Singer sewing machine. “The concept of buying new clothes was not something that was introduced,” Do recently told the writer Ocean Vuong in Cero, an arts magazine focused on emerging talents. Naturally, the American mall-store where his mom shopped for work clothes made quite an impression on the immigrant teenager.
Fast forward a couple of decades and Do has designed a capsule collection for Banana Republic. He calls it a “dialogue” between his five-year-old label, and the 45-year-old BR, which has undergone a reboot of late that includes an imminent home collection, what the company calls, “an important milestone in the brand’s transformation as the premier lifestyle destination for the modern explorer.” Do himself is in growth mode. He opted out of a February show for a “good reset,” but after a quiet start to 2023 he was named the creative director of Helmut Lang in May, a designer who has long been one of his fashion north stars, and his debut collection for that label will open New York Fashion Week in September. There’s also talk that he’ll show his eponymous collection in Paris, but that’s TBC pending the release of that city’s schedule.
The Banana Republic opportunity appealed to Do, who has come to be known as one of fashion’s least attention-seeking designers of the moment, wearing masks in public and posing for photos with his back turned to the camera, precisely because the brand does collaborations so infrequently. “I feel like the industry is going through sort of a collaboration exhaustion, and I didn’t want to add any more to that conversation if I didn’t have anything new to say,” he explained at BR’s headquarters in lower Manhattan. “If we do this, I said, ‘we have to do it in a way where we don’t sacrifice any design integrity.’” When the offer came in, he spent some time getting reacquainted with the brand and found himself impressed. It should not be confused with any of the proliferating fast-fashion mall chains. “After visiting the stores,” he said, “I realized the quality is really amazing.”
Do comes by his own design integrity via an early obsession with Tumbler as much as by his training at FIT. A stint in the ready-to-wear atelier at Celine, where he worked under Phoebe Philo, refined his clean, minimal-ish aesthetic but his own work is simultaneously sexier and more androgynous than his former boss’s output. The pieces in the BR x Peter Do capsule were fitted on both women and men, which is a process he’s refined at his own label, and will be offered with just one category of unisex sizing.
“It’s not about brands dictating how people should dress; it’s about meeting customers where they are and inspiring them to make it their own,” says Meena Anvary, BR’s Head of Marketing, of the company’s attraction to Do. “With Peter Do, a brand that grew organically on social media and is so connected to his audience, it was a natural fit from the beginning.”
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Of course, it wouldn’t be a Peter Do collection without tailoring. The four-piece suit he’s designed for Banana Republic—tuxedo blazer, trousers, utility shirt, and skirt—looks like something you’d see on his own runway, but the waistband on the pants reminded this writer of a pair of khaki shorts ordered from BR’s famous illustrated Travel Safari catalog in the mid-1980s. Do’s Tumblr followers may not know this, but in its first incarnation, before it infiltrated malls across America, Banana Republic sold reworked vintage military surplus. I carried its “authentic Israeli paratrooper briefcase” throughout high school (for a visual this site is useful).
The extensive Banana Republic archives proved inspirational for much of the collection, but especially the hero piece in Do’s capsule. It’s a swaggering cotton trench with a removable shearling collar and a cupro and rayon liner printed with a vintage map of Do’s Brooklyn home-base. But just as important as BR’s history is Do’s own vocabulary. Utility being one of his key signatures, the chunky ribbed cashmere sweater inspired by an oversize knit that Kate Moss modeled in a 1990s BR campaign features detachable arms, so it can be worn sleeveless if and when the mood strikes. “I think I pushed the Banana Republic team to be more creative,” Do said. “There were no rules.”
BR x Peter Do will be available in October 2023 in select retail locations as well as online.
Listen to Peter Do in conversation with Vogue Runway’s Nicole Phelps on this episode of The Run-Through here.
