GoKawiilis features writer with five years of experience covering the companies that shape technology and the people who use their tools.
In late April, Palantir — the software company that, in recent years, has perhaps become best known for its defense industry contracts and work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement — announced that it would be adding new products to its merch store. The latest offering was a cotton chore coat.
At $239 and in bright blue and black options, the jacket looks like a standard offering that has, by way of photographer Bill Cunningham, trickled down into mainstream menswear for years. This jacket is a pastiche of 19th century French workwear that was worn by people actually doing physical labor; the only noticeable difference is that a dainty Palantir logo appears on the breast pocket.
The jacket ruffled feathers, to put it lightly. One TikTok described it as “Evil boring French workwear for evil boring guys.” The more sartorially inclined questioned why Palantir, as a cheerleader of US military might, wouldn’t make something inspired by American workwear. Still, by the end of its on-sale day, the 420 units Palantir produced had sold out. (Palantir declined to comment for this story.)
For over a year, along with its merch, Palantir has been trying to sell the idea that it is, actually, a lifestyle brand. In a credulous interview with GQ leading up to the release of the jackets, a Palantir employee told the magazine that the company “exists to ensure that the institutions that power the United States and its allies have the best software capabilities on Earth,” and that wearing Palantir-branded clothing was a way for other people to hitch their wagon to this ideology. As for what wearing Palantir merchandise would represent, there are mentions of “supporting our warfighters,” “strengthening Western institutions,” and being apolitical. Most of the garments do not obviously signal these things — there’s no stars and stripes iconography or STAND FOR THE FLAG, KNEEL FOR THE FALLEN-type slogans. Instead, it is Palantir talking to itself and its supporters; chore coat wearers might earnestly believe in these values, but their clothing, at least, is a marketing exercise for the company itself.
“It makes sense to me. I think it’s actually really smart of Palantir to want this, to want to be on T-shirts and to want to be something that people wear, even ironically,” says Avery Trufelman, a fashion journalist and host of Articles of Interest, a podcast that last year detailed the outdoor industry and its long-running ties to the military. “It’s kind of a bad move to say you want to be cool — that’s not cool. But the initial aspiration is really, really smart.”
As Articles of Interest documented, fashion and the military have a deeply entangled history — from bomber jackets and combat boots to field jackets and khakis, our contemporary wardrobes are littered with clothing that has origins in military use. Some household name brands like Patagonia have also contracted with the military in addition to selling fleece jackets to crunchy outdoor types.
Palantir’s merch is a new way for the laptop class to signal brand alignment
It’s also not so unusual that a defense contractor would wind up making products for the consumer market, Trufelman says: synthetic insulation by PrimaLoft was initially developed for the US military but now lines jackets sold at REI and bedding at L.L. Bean. Camouflage prints intended for elite soldiers are now also part of the uniform of fashionable civilians. The difference, of course, is that Palantir doesn’t really make clothes: It makes powerful (and sometimes poorly understood) software that even some of its own employees are increasingly concerned about. Palantir’s merch serves no tactical purpose for “warfighters,” but is a new way for the laptop class to signal brand alignment.
“Palantir doing their version of it is sensible, because who are the people that are buying their clothes? They’re often urban knowledge workers, people that send email all day,” says Derek Guy, a menswear writer. (You may know him as “The Menswear Guy” on social media.) “It’s just a very fashionable garment at the moment for that kind of class.”
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