PARIS — On his 19th birthday in 1999, Wilfried Atzert wanted one thing: a Carhartt jacket.
In Paris at the time, the brand was primarily known via a licensed offshoot called Carhartt Work In Progress, or WIP, which was founded in 1994 and gave a fashion edge to the functional workwear of the century-old, US-based Carhartt Inc. In middle America, the Carhartt name may have been synonymous with double-knee pants and Detroit jackets worn by farmers, ranchers and factory workers, but in Europe and Asia, it was predominately found in small streetwear shops where skaters, graffiti artists and DJs congregated.
Atzert got his jacket at Le Shop, where brands rented “shop in shops” and, at the time, the only store in Paris selling Carhartt WIP. Eventually he would get a job with WIP as a runner in the shop, move up to store manager and then be appointed to run WIP’s sales and marketing at its Paris office. In 2024, after a quarter century with the company, he became Carhartt WIP’s global chief executive.
Atzert’s rise mirrors the unlikely trajectory of the brand itself. From its roots in utilitarian clothing, Carhartt WIP has grown into a fixture of the streetwear landscape that’s helped to make the Carhartt logo fashionable, wherever it appears. Celebrities from K-Pop star Taeyeon to actors such as Daniel Day Lewis, Paul Mescal and Austin Butler are routinely seen sporting it. Vintage Carhartt Inc. workwear goes for thousands on resale sites. “The brand’s yellow logo is considered a menswear stamp of approval,” GQ declared last year.
Carhartt Inc.’s rugged appeal is part of that success, but so is Carhartt WIP’s subcultural cachet. From the start, its strategy was cultural immersion, not broad advertising. Marketing spend went to vinyl compilations, zines and basement events rather than billboards. It sponsored skate teams, supported graffiti festivals and collaborated with underground music collectives.
“We work with people we genuinely like and who already wear the product,” Atzert said. “If you try to manufacture cool, you usually end up with the opposite. It used to take years to build a music collection, months to truly get into a scene. We try to keep things authentic today and avoid celebrities and influencers. We never paid anyone to wear our clothes.”
Today, Carhartt WIP is bigger than ever. It generates €600 million ($703 million) in annual sales and operates in more than 80 markets. Globally, the brand has 63 standalone stores and a total of 122 physical points of sale, with 10 more, ranging from Jakarta to Lisbon, that will be open by the end of the year.
Atzert’s plan is to keep the growth going — but not too fast. The brand faces a tricky balancing act as the Carhartt name risks growing too hyped for its own good, resulting in the sort of overexposure that can send status seekers rushing to the next thing.
“We want to last and grow slowly, so we placed caps on orders very early on,” Atzert said. “Selling out is key; we don’t like to see products on sale.”
How Carhartt Inc. Gave Rise to Carhartt WIP
Founded in Detroit in 1889, Carhartt Inc. built its reputation on hardwearing canvas and duck cloth. The customer base was — and largely remains — blue-collar workers who need sturdy clothes for tough jobs. As far as Carhartt Inc. is concerned, that’s still the audience it serves, even if it is “flattered” by the attention from the fashion crowd, said Susan Hennike, Carhartt Inc.’s chief brand officer.
“We don’t stray from who we are and we don’t chase after any trends,” said Hennike. “That’s going to come and go, but the people who are doing the hard work need the gear that’s made just for them. That’s where we put our focus.”
By the early 1990s, Carhartt Inc.’s workwear had attracted the notice of American subcultures such as hip-hop and skateboarding. That’s also when Swiss entrepreneur Edwin Faeh took note.
Observing Carhartt products circulating in flea markets and underground circles, Faeh saw the potential for a stylish, European twist on its workwear icons and proposed a licensing deal to the Carhartt family: keep the materials and utility, but adapt the fits, colours and marketing for a more fashionable audience. The family agreed, and WIP was born.
Luca Benini, the streetwear tastemaker who founded the Italian multi-brand distribution company and Slam Jam retail stores in 1989, recalls Carhartt WIP being a foundational brand to sell during the company’s early days. He remembers it as a brand that was in sync with Black American culture in cities like New York and stronger “in terms of turnover” than other streetwear labels within its portfolio such as Stüssy or Fresh Jive.
“I didn’t care what Carhartt represented in Italy or Europe at that time. I cared about what it represented in New York and LA, and that’s also the direction Mr. Faeh wanted to follow,” said Benini. “It wasn’t workwear, but streetwear for a young generation.”
In an email, Faeh said he never expected the brand to become as successful as it is. “I’m not a fortune teller and also I never had a plan, I just loved the brand and its iconic styles,” he wrote.
WIP’s first store opened in London in 1997, followed by Paris in 2001, where its headquarters remain (the finance and product development headquarters are in Basel, Switzerland). The growth model was deliberate: avoid oversaturating, prioritise the right wholesale partners and open flagships in cities with strong cultural relevance. Their marketing focused on authentic connections to subcultures, favoring zines, skate teams, graffiti festivals, and underground music over ads or influencers — an approach it still follows today.
Production, initially centred in Faeh’s factory in Tunisia, has since expanded to a network of specialist manufacturers across Europe and Asia, chosen for their ability to work with the brand’s signature heavy-duty fabrics and finishes.
At this stage, Carhartt Inc. and Carhartt WIP operate like siblings who chose totally different lifestyles, though they are, of course, still related. Atzert pointed out that Carhartt Inc.’s workwear origins give Carhartt WIP a level of credibility. Some shoppers seek out vintage Carhartt pieces that bear the patina of actual work. On the resale site Grailed, a vintage mid-century Carhartt Inc. jacket sold for $2,500 last year.
“The social clout that you get from having a weathered-looking piece that you’ve done no work to make look weathered still counts, right?” said digital creator Clayton Chambers. “There’s definitely a class of people who care a lot about how it looks, how weathered it looks in particular, and want to use that as a flex.”
Going Global Without Losing the Underground
Except during the shock of the pandemic, Carhartt’s sales have been on a steady growth streak for roughly a decade, climbing 6.3 percent in 2024 compared to the prior year.
The road hasn’t been all smooth. When skinny silhouettes dominated the late 2000s and early 2010s, WIP’s baggier fits — a core part of its DNA — were out of step with mainstream fashion. Wholesale orders shrank, and some retail partners doubted whether workwear could survive in a climate obsessed with stretch denim and slim joggers.
“At that point, we could have chased the trend,” Atzert recalled. “But we believed the pendulum would swing back. If we abandoned our shapes and fabrics, what would be left?”
The gamble paid off as baggy fits have returned. Sales rebounded, and younger consumers rediscovered the aesthetic.
Still, Atzert resists overproducing. “If you flood the market, you kill the magic,” he said.
Slam Jam’s Benini believes that Carhartt WIP has also resonated with shoppers over the past five years because of its commitment to producing good-quality products that are reasonably priced.
The same approach applies to WIP’s womenswear, a category the brand has quietly expanded in the past decade. Rather than designing overtly “feminine” versions of its menswear staples, the brand kept the same fabrics, cuts and construction, adjusting only where function demanded it.
“We didn’t want to create a separate identity,” Atzert says. “Our women’s customers often prefer the same authenticity, the same fits, just made to work for her.”
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Carhartt WIP has also introduced other items over time, such as bags, rubber boats and ceramic noodle bowls. (The Carhartt pet line is a separate licensing agreement.)
“Carhartt is basic, maybe people get tired of the same items for 35 years, so we bring a fun twist,” Atzert said.
And while 2025 will see headline collaborations with Sacai and Nicholas Daley — plus a still-secret “special moment” at the end of October — Atzert insists the playbook won’t change: keep growing, but not too fast, and keep Carhartt WIP rooted in the underground scenes that made it cool in the first place.