Every part concerning the Lockheed Martin streetwear is complicated

The web site seems like one thing {that a} generative AI system dreamed up: Lockheed Martin Attire, the place you may get streetwear-style denims and outsized tees bearing the brand of a protection contractor accused of aiding conflict criminals.

However the garments are actual, a minimum of in South Korea. The streetwear line has stirred up interest on X after a consumer posted a screenshot from the corporate’s web site.

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We reached out to Lockheed Martin to make clear its relationship with the attire model. The corporate responded that it will look into the request however didn’t present any extra info by the point of publication.

Nonetheless, it is potential that the worldwide safety and aerospace firm licensed its title, brand, and likeness to a South Korean firm that’s now utilizing it to promote garments.

This observe is pretty frequent in South Korea, the place Jeep, Nationwide Geographic, and even defunct airline Pan Am have been reimagined as streetwear manufacturers with their very own brick-and-mortar shops. Within the States, we would discover this idea a bit odd — I actually do. However these borrowed-brand clothes traces are extraordinarily standard in South Korea in a means that appears indiscriminate of their origin. Even CNN has gotten the streetwear therapy.

I initially assumed that South Koreans is likely to be unaware of the work and fame of the Lockheed Martin model, but it surely seems that the corporate is a significant participant within the nation’s protection market. Maybe, then, the attract for South Koreans is carrying a overseas language and daring graphics on their particular person, in the identical means that some People get tattoos of Chinese language symbols though they do not converse Mandarin.

Then there may be the query of why Lockheed Martin would enable its title and brand to be licensed on this means. The corporate has an official retailer, the place you may get its brand printed on a North Face fleece or on Carhartt overalls.

However the South Korean model, satirically, does a greater job of selling the corporate. One shirt at the moment on the market on the streetwear web site consists of in its design Lockheed Martin’s values: “Do What’s Proper, Respect Others, and Carry out with Excellence.” It then lists the tackle of the corporate’s Bethesda, Maryland headquarters.

Good to know that the military-industrial complicated propaganda machine is alive and effectively.