Vanson was founded in 1974 by Mike van der Sleesen and James Goodson, and its jackets are still sewn by hand in its workshop in Fall River, Massachusetts. GEEDUP’s announcement traced it from racetrack to street: collaborations with Supreme, Aimé Leon Dore and Awake NY, and jackets worn by Pharrell Williams, A$AP Ferg and LeBron James. “A New York staple born from racing,” it read, “imbedded in Streetwear.”

For Jake Paco the project closed a loop that started in front of a screen. “From watching it on screens as a kid to building it with our own hands,” he wrote. “If you stay true long enough, the things you admired eventually stand beside you.”

The design team’s files begin in February 2025, with Vanson’s own racing jackets as reference and a concept deck the same month. The first hoodie samples arrived in June. In August the Bones Jacket went from paper mock to cut leather panels, and by month’s end finished samples in black and in bone stood on dress forms.

The skeleton is Vanson heritage. The company traces it to flat-track racing, where Dave Aldana wore a skeleton design on his racing suit that the AMA frowned on as an outlaw influence and almost banned. Vanson later sponsored Aldana and ran the design from 1984 to 1986.

GEEDUP’s version is cut from competition-weight steerhide, with anatomical bones appliquéd in leather front and back, double leather inside the shoulders and sleeve caps, a beaded leather collar and two rear exhaust vents. It came in black/white, with black rayon lining and oxidised black zips, and bone/white, with gold lining and gold zips. Around it sat Team Logo and Script Logo hoodies with leather badges, one carrying a GEEDUP x Vanson ski mask in the pocket, plus tees and caps.

The campaign was shot on horseback, the jacket against open grassland, and the rollout opened on 29 January. A one-off GEEDUP × Vanson sculpture followed, then the jacket in the snow for “Central Park sessions”, then posts from the factory with Davon Bean and Trevene Patrick: “the infamous door, the lab, the magicians house - All American hand made leathers.”

The capsule went live on the GEEDUP and Complex webstores on 13 February, and every Bones Jacket was gone.

The launch at Complex NY, 620 Broadway, with a private party and 41WORLD performing, has its own story: West Sydney > New York. GEEDUP’s thank-you that week went to Vanson and Davon Bean “for entrusting us with this project”.