Image: ARK/8
Luxury brand ARK/8 has teamed up with FromSoftware for luxury Elden Ring drip.
Elden Ring is getting an official streetwear collection because if there’s one thing the Tarnished are known for, it’s their impeccable sense of style. Developer FromSoftware has teamed up with the luxury brand ARK/8 for a line of clothing called ‘The Lands Between Collection’. The collection consists of eight very expensive pieces of clothing, none of which are lifted directly from the game, but rather inspired by it.
What’s in The Lands Between Collection?
ARK/8’s Elden Ring streetwear collection ranges from distressed sweaters labelled ‘Tarnished’ to large faux fur coats with a Rune patch on the back. Unless there’s a secret knitwear armour set in the game I don’t know about, these clothes seem to be only distantly related to the contents of the game, not lifted from it directly. They’re also incredibly expensive.
The ‘Faux Fur Runes Coat’ is the most pricey item in the collection, going for a hefty RM8281 (about $1732) in total. In case you’re wondering, the cheapest item here is the RM592 (around $123) ‘Boss Door T-shirt’ which appears to be a simple black tee with an image of a boss door on its back. Forking up nearly RM600 for a single T-shirt is frankly unfathomable to me, but if you’re a really big fan of Elden Ring’s boss doors, you might be tempted to take the plunge. Maybe.
After all, this collection is coming from a luxury streetwear brand - you’re paying extra not just to wear it, but to show it off. Distressed sweaters and overpriced tees aside, there are actually a few eye-catching items in this collection. The ‘Lands Between Printed Bomber’ jacket comes printed with a map of Elden Ring’s world, and it's a statement piece if I've ever seen one. The Boss Mist Sweater is also a really nice piece of knitwear with arresting artwork.
Creative director Dimitri van Eetvelde was in charge of putting this collection together after ARK/8 put out several Dark Souls collections with FromSoftware, and the designer notes that, “It took us over 2 years, countless design meetings and over 150 designs that we ended up scrapping (sorry Bandai Namco!) to arrive here.” In order to design these pieces of clothing, Eetvelde and his team scouted out the game’s many environments and, “started exploring the meta,” to get a sense of the game’s, “broken, destroyed aesthetic.”
Gaming and luxury fashion brands continue to be an unexpected but nonetheless interesting love story.
