Software program firm Palantir has waded into on-line vogue discourse after its head of strategic engagement, Eliano A. Younes, posted footage of a “light-weight Palantir chore coat” to X.
In his put up, Younes detailed the make of the coat (100% cotton, designed and made in America, “relaxed match”), including that it goes on sale April 30.
The perplexing framing has caught folks’s consideration: Is that this inside merch for a controversial tech firm, or a drop from a streetwear model? More and more, these worlds are getting uncomfortably nearer collectively.
The backlash
The chore coats obtained criticism on-line, starting from feedback about their design to Palantir’s transfer to enterprise deeper into vogue.
“IMO, an organization claiming to champion the US ought to’ve completed an US chore coat. Traditionally, US chore coats have been constituted of denim or duck canvas, and had 4 pockets as a substitute of three (e.g., Sears, Lee, Carhartt). Yours takes after manufacturers like Vetra and Le Labourer, that are French,” one user stated in an X put up.
One other user shared the same critique, posting to X, “The factor that appears so crazy-making to me about that is that Palantir is so America-rah-rah however they selected to make their jacket after conventional French chore coat as a substitute of an American one?? I think about they simply don’t even know what they’re referencing?”
Younes responded that Palantir is a champion of the U.S., but in addition of its French “allies.” He defined that he selected the chore coat as a result of he needed to make one thing trendy, snug, and with delicate branding for his Palantir colleagues to put on to and from buyer websites.
“Three sewn on patch pockets get the job completed and maintain prices decrease. don’t want so as to add a bunch of zippers and flaps and litter up the piece. it’s pure,” Younes said in a reply on X.
Why is Palantir designing chore coats?
Palantir isn’t any stranger to criticism. The corporate has been a perpetual supply of controversy for the work it does for shoppers together with the U.S. army and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It lately got here below fireplace for posting a 22-point manifesto on X that summarized the arguments from Nicholas W. Zamiska and Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s guide, The Technological Republic: Arduous Energy, Gentle Perception, and the Way forward for the West.
The tradition conflict between Palantir’s work and the general public persona it’s trying to domesticate via a vogue drop has been the crux of the unfavorable suggestions across the chore coat.
“Inbuilt surveillance trackers?” one user on X posted concerning the coats, poking at Palantir’s involvement in surveillance.
Many reshared and referenced an X post from December 2025 by Chloe Iris Kennedy, a vogue contributor at Forbes.
In response to the information of Lockheed Martin’s rise in streetwear, she had posted, “within the early 2000s camo print was strategically positioned within the vogue zeitgeist as a way of aligning the western world with the struggle on terror. these days struggle machines can merely launch merchandise, label it gorpcore, and the general public will willingly fund their acts of terror. that is the consequence of a long time of denying the politics of vogue. that is the consequence of years of dwindling media literacy. that is artwork that thinks you’re silly.”
The way forward for Palantir’s vogue
Palantir is one in every of many firms that makes use of merch as a way of visible public assist from followers. Lockheed Martin and Boeing belong to the ranks of firms that additionally promote branded clothes.
Younes has frequently referred to as Palantir “THE lifestyle brand.” In a current interview with GQ, he defined how the merchandise indicators alignment with the corporate’s mission and that the designs derive from Karp’s gravitation towards the custom of “clear, structured aesthetics and robust craftsmanship,” adding, “That’s how we take into consideration our software program too, bringing readability to complexity. We wish the merchandise we make to replicate those self same ideas.”
