Pop Trading Company started life in 2013 as a distributor, not a label. Founders Peter Kolks and Ric van Rest were bringing brands like Palace and Polar into the Benelux while running their own skate shop and building one of Amsterdam's most credible scenes. That distribution background matters, because when Pop Trading Company launched its own line a few years later, it arrived with none of the naivety of a first-time brand. They knew construction, they knew fabric, and they knew exactly what a skate label needed to actually survive.
What's kept us coming back to Pop Trading Company is the tone: laid-back, graphic-driven, irreverent without trying too hard. Their designs lean on strong artwork and considered branding rather than logo-mania, and there's a European ease to the cut that separates them from a lot of the more aggressive American skate labels. These are clothes built to be lived in, skated in, and worn well past the skatepark.
The AW26 collection carries that same identity through into the colder months, starting with the sportswear-driven pieces that have always been the backbone of a Pop collection. The Full Zip Sweat arrives in a washed black colourway with a zip placket and funnel-style collar, while the Logo Hooded Sweat, a genuine staple, season after season, comes this time in an easy grey with striped detailing on the cuffs and hem. The Logo Crewneck rounds that trio out in a washed navy with a properly soft handle and the obligatory branding on the reverse, understated as ever.
Elsewhere, the collection pushes past skate and sportswear reference points entirely. The Harrington Jacket is a standout, a rich houndstooth pattern worked into a modern, slightly boxy cut that sits just right. The DRS Jeans keep doing what they've always done well: relaxed through the leg with a shallow taper to the hem, this season in a heavier wash with a distinct 80s feel. And the Johnston Jacket shows real range, taking cues from flight jacket construction and finishing it in a washed, distressed cotton twill in faded black, worn-in from the first wear, with tonal branding on the reverse.
Graphic tees remain central to how the label tells a story each season, and this time they're playing with fisheye lens effects and themes of reproduction and artifice, proof the brand is still finding new ways to say something with a plain tee and a good idea.
It's also worth noting how far the brand has travelled without losing its identity: past collaborators include Burberry, Paul Smith, Converse, and G.H. Bass, proof that the wider fashion world sees exactly what we do in them.
Pop Trading Company
