Rats are fashionable this year.
With Chinese New Year just around the corner, fashion brands are celebrating the occasion with special garments that mark the Year of the Rat, including Diesel, which unveiled a new edgy, skate-inspired capsule collection.
The limited-edition men’s and women’s collection offers signature Diesel items like Jogg Jeans and T-shirts with hand-drawn illustrations of a rat riding a skateboard. The color palette is confined to black, white and red to play up a streetwear aesthetic that reflects the city at midnight, a time closely associated with the urban rodents.
Along with knitwear, sweatshirts, underwear and accessories, standout items include a reversible men’s bomber jacket with a lightning bolt print, and a men’s denim jacket and women’s leather jacket with rat graphics on the back.
Diesel’s distressed Jogg Jeans were updated to include embroidered rat patches, and a unisex black backpack with a Diesel logo with a red rat graphic scribbled over it.
The Year of the Rat collection is available immediately in select Diesel stores and online. The line retails from $88 for a T-shirt to $448 for a denim jacket.
Diesel is among the growing list of brands that have introduced special collections to mark the holiday. Gucci released a capsule collection with Mickey Mouse to celebrate Chinese New Year. New Balance updated its 577 sneakers with the grey tones of a rat. And Rag & Bone released a meme-inspired sweater that pays homage to Pizza Rat, the focus of the 2015 viral video that showed a New York City subway rat toting a cheesy slice.
Chinese New Year begins Jan. 25.
