Season 2 of the designer’s cult collab with the Irish stout brand arrives as a 17-piece collection that transforms beer branding into actual street culture.
When JW Anderson first partnered with Guinness, it felt like a joke that landed. Now it’s a moment. The second season of the collaboration drops with 17 pieces built around Little Simz as the collection’s visible anchor, and the stakes have clearly shifted from novelty to genuine wardrobe architecture. This isn’t merch designed around a beer brand anymore, it’s a designer using heritage iconography as a creative constraint, the way high fashion used to work.
The collection pivots between straightforward logowork and something more abstract. Oversized shirts play with Guinness’s visual language without screaming it; knitwear arrives in colorways that echo the drink without being literal. There’s a subversiveness in how Anderson has pitched this: the pieces exist in that specific pocket where luxury and utility collide, where wearing Guinness-adjacent apparel doesn’t read as brand capture but as a knowing cultural flex. Little Simz, already operating in that nexus between street credibility and fashion clout, becomes the natural translator. She’s the kind of artist who can wear a piece like this and make it feel like her idea first.
What makes this season distinct from the first is scope. Seventeen pieces suggests something closer to a capsule wardrobe than a collaborative drop. You could theoretically build an actual outfit universe here, which is what separates a moment from a moment that matters. The fashion conversation around beer marketing has always been about irony; Anderson seems to be playing it straight now, letting the work speak without winking at the audience.
