Jan-Jan Van Essche on O-Project

Tuesday, December 2nd 2025

“I still don’t really believe in the seasonal wardrobe," Belgian designer Jan-Jan Van Essche said in 2014. “Every time of the year I wear more or less the same clothes — sometimes one layer, sometimes five.” O-Project, the brand he launched two years later, exists for the same, comfortable reason. This is modular easywear for everyday pleasure, effortless garments that’ve been exhaustively designed to flow gracefully into each other, and just about anything else.

Van Essche always envisioned O-Project as a series of fluid staples made to be rotated in, out, and around each other to create perfect daily dress. All-inclusive, like a perfect circle — or “O.” (“Project” was added to the name because, well, just try searching for “O” online.) Plenty else has changed since the line’s inception but not that core concept.  “I feel the identity of O in essence hasn’t changed,” Van Essche says. “But it’s true the collection has matured quite a bit. We started making a much wider range of garments.”

Over the past decade, O-Project has evolved from lounge-y sets into a comprehensive collection of loose shapes not so far removed from Van Essche’s other, eponymous label. But O-Project is nothing if not approachable, its loose shirts and trousers reigned in by Van Essche’s famously intricate pattern-making, where yokes are dropped (or twisted, or bent, or even evaporated) and seams shift anatomically.

O-Project’s clothes were initially produced in Belgium, like Van Essche’s mainline collections, but are now created entirely in Japan. “That meant a significant deepening of the collection,” says Van Essche. “Recently, we’ve been focusing even more on fabrics, because of growing knowledge and a widening access to great artisanal textiles.” This is made clear by some of the O-Project items that make up the debut selection offered by Colbo: a pair of loose trousers is cut from a lush silk-cotton treated with dorozome or Japanese mud-dying; golden cotton corduroy is as soft as it is meaty; soft brushed wool makes O-Project’s signature balloon shirt as comfortable as a cardigan, with drawstrings at the hem that allow for an adjustable silhouette. “This is all fluid and personal,” says Van Essche. “and with the fact that seasons are so much less stable, our approach to seasonal clothing is changing, too.”

If it all sounds quite advanced, put the clothes on to realize how wearable they truly are. This is because, as Van Essche puts it, O-Project’s “designs are conceived with real life use in mind… in correspondence to utilitarian details and workwear inspiration.” You see these reference points in the deep pockets and sturdy stitching, but also in the shapes so classic that they return each season in fresh fabrications, like the perfectly named Easy Wide Pant and an oversized T-shirt so beloved in Japan that some customers call it “God Tee.” 

Unsurprisingly, Van Essche underscores the importance of wearing O-Project for yourself, all season, any season. “O is a collection that really starts working and communicating the moment you get in the clothes and feel them on the body,” he explains. “We work hard on the look of the collection, but the feeling is as important. Don’t be shy to try.”