The Baracuta CasualCore The re-launch of the casual style and the reinterpretation of an icon
From Hollywood to Harvard and Yale, to Elvis Presley concerts or Mods Lambrettas. Baracuta's history has spanned throughout almost half a century of Western culture, becoming a brand symbol of different cultural styles and legacies.
After having dominated the style in the middle of the 20th century, Baracuta's casual seems to be able to go back to meeting the aesthetic needs of the new generations, thanks to timeless garments like the Harrington Jacket. The brand does not seem to be just an intact image of itself but is entering a wider market thanks to collaborations with streetwear brands and new research on its archive. The materials and the fit has changed, rewriting the basics of casual fashion and bringing together the common taste towards more linear and sartorial silhouettes.
To confirm this, for SS19 the label has experimented with the garment dye and the use of Nylon on the iconic G9, techniques and materials never experienced before but adopted by many brands thanks to the growth of other casual brands such as Stone Island and CP Company. The review in some cases has coincided with much more marked changes, as in the collaboration with Engineered Garments, in which one of the Harrington symbols has been removed from the sides: the Fraiser Tartan lining. The checkered motif of the Lovat clan of Scotland is one of Baracuta's symbols since the two Miller brothers - founders of the Manchester brand - asked permission from Lord Simon Christopher Joseph Fraser, Commander of the clan himself and known to be one of the coolest men in his Majesty's army at the turn of the two wars.
Just as on the eve of the Second War it is the middle class, and not that of the Manchester Golf Club, that is relaunching the Baracuta, adopting it as a symbol of a taste that is increasingly going towards a simplification of volumes. The rediscovery of the brand of John and Isaac Miller is the natural consequence of the Heritage, Normcore and Workwear style, broken down precisely in the Harrington Jacket.
Another key to understanding the recent success of the brand is the success of the custom, which has found a challenge not only in the sneakers but in the reinterpretation of classics for a long time untouchable like the G9.
If social networks are a more or less true reflection of our personality, the idea of what has become Baracuta can have it by looking at the brand's Instagram feed. Everything is balanced in chronological terms, between modernist architecture in Seoul, archive shots of English pop culture and macro on buttons and patterns. Modern and adequate elegance still has a place in a variety of fashion languages.
