Palantir’s true believers are wearing this jacket
Palantir’s true believers are wearing this jacket
Palantir 的忠实信徒们正在穿这件夹克
In late April, Palantir — the software company that, in recent years, has perhaps become best known for its defense industry contracts and work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement — announced that it would be adding new products to its merch store. The latest offering was a cotton chore coat. 四月下旬，Palantir——这家近年来因国防工业合同以及与美国移民及海关执法局（ICE）的合作而广为人知的软件公司——宣布其周边商店将上架新产品。最新推出的商品是一件棉质工装夹克（chore coat）。
At $239 and in bright blue and black options, the jacket looks like a standard offering that has, by way of photographer Bill Cunningham, trickled down into mainstream menswear for years. This jacket is a pastiche of 19th century French workwear that was worn by people actually doing physical labor; the only noticeable difference is that a dainty Palantir logo appears on the breast pocket. 这件夹克售价 239 美元，有亮蓝色和黑色可选。它看起来就像是那种经由摄影师比尔·坎宁安（Bill Cunningham）推广、多年来已渗透进主流男装市场的标准款式。这件夹克模仿了 19 世纪法国体力劳动者穿着的工装；唯一明显的区别是，胸前的口袋上印有一个精致的 Palantir 标志。
The jacket ruffled feathers, to put it lightly. One TikTok described it as “Evil boring French workwear for evil boring guys.” The more sartorially inclined questioned why Palantir, as a cheerleader of US military might, wouldn’t make something inspired by American workwear. Still, by the end of its on-sale day, the 420 units Palantir produced had sold out. (Palantir declined to comment for this story.) 委婉地说，这件夹克引起了不小的争议。一位 TikTok 用户将其描述为“给邪恶且无聊的家伙穿的邪恶且无聊的法国工装”。那些更讲究穿搭的人则质疑，作为美国军事力量的拥护者，Palantir 为什么不设计一些受美国工装启发的产品。尽管如此，在发售当天结束时，Palantir 生产的 420 件夹克还是被抢购一空。（Palantir 拒绝就本文置评。）
For over a year, along with its merch, Palantir has been trying to sell the idea that it is, actually, a lifestyle brand. In a credulous interview with GQ leading up to the release of the jackets, a Palantir employee told the magazine that the company “exists to ensure that the institutions that power the United States and its allies have the best software capabilities on Earth,” and that wearing Palantir-branded clothing was a way for other people to hitch their wagon to this ideology. 一年多来，Palantir 在销售周边产品的同时，一直试图推销一种理念：它实际上是一个生活方式品牌。在夹克发布前接受《GQ》的一次采访中，一名 Palantir 员工向该杂志表示，公司“存在的意义是确保支撑美国及其盟友的机构拥有地球上最顶尖的软件能力”，而穿着 Palantir 品牌的服装，是其他人将自己与这一意识形态挂钩的一种方式。
As for what wearing Palantir merchandise would represent, there are mentions of “supporting our warfighters,” “strengthening Western institutions,” and being apolitical. Most of the garments do not obviously signal these things — there’s no stars and stripes iconography or slogans. Instead, it is Palantir talking to itself and its supporters; chore coat wearers might earnestly believe in these values, but their clothing, at least, is a marketing exercise for the company itself. 至于穿着 Palantir 周边代表什么，官方提到了“支持我们的战士”、“加强西方机构”以及“保持非政治化”。大多数服装并没有明显地传达这些信息——上面没有星条旗图案或口号。相反，这是 Palantir 在与自身及其支持者对话；工装夹克的穿着者可能真诚地认同这些价值观，但至少从服装本身来看，这只是公司的一次营销活动。
“It makes sense to me. I think it’s actually really smart of Palantir to want this, to want to be on T-shirts and to want to be something that people wear, even ironically,” says Avery Trufelman, a fashion journalist and host of Articles of Interest, a podcast that last year detailed the outdoor industry and its long-running ties to the military. “It’s kind of a bad move to say you want to be cool — that’s not cool. But the initial aspiration is really, really smart.” “这对我来说说得通。我认为 Palantir 想要实现这一点——想要出现在 T 恤上，想要成为人们穿着的东西，哪怕是出于讽刺目的——其实非常聪明，”时尚记者、《Articles of Interest》播客主持人艾弗里·特鲁费尔曼（Avery Trufelman）说道。该播客去年曾详细报道过户外产业及其与军方长期的联系。“宣称自己想变酷是一种糟糕的做法——那一点也不酷。但这种最初的愿望是非常、非常聪明的。”
As Articles of Interest documented, fashion and the military have a deeply entangled history — from bomber jackets and combat boots to field jackets and khakis, our contemporary wardrobes are littered with clothing that has origins in military use. Some household name brands like Patagonia have also contracted with the military in addition to selling fleece jackets to crunchy outdoor types. 正如《Articles of Interest》所记录的那样，时尚与军事有着深厚的渊源——从飞行员夹克、作战靴到野战夹克和卡其裤，我们现代人的衣橱里充斥着源自军事用途的服装。一些家喻户晓的品牌，如 Patagonia，除了向户外爱好者销售抓绒夹克外，也曾与军方签订过合同。
It’s also not so unusual that a defense contractor would wind up making products for the consumer market, Trufelman says: synthetic insulation by PrimaLoft was initially developed for the US military but now lines jackets sold at REI and bedding at L.L. Bean. Camouflage prints intended for elite soldiers are now also part of the uniform of fashionable civilians. The difference, of course, is that Palantir doesn’t really make clothes: It makes powerful (and sometimes poorly understood) software that even some of its own employees are increasingly concerned about. Palantir’s merch serves no tactical purpose for “warfighters,” but is a new way for the laptop class to signal brand alignment. 特鲁费尔曼表示，国防承包商最终为消费市场生产产品并不罕见：PrimaLoft 的合成保暖材料最初是为美军开发的，但现在已用于 REI 出售的夹克和 L.L. Bean 的床上用品中。原本为精英士兵设计的迷彩印花，现在也成了时尚平民的制服。当然，区别在于 Palantir 并不真正生产服装：它制造的是功能强大（有时也难以理解）的软件，甚至连其部分员工也对此日益担忧。Palantir 的周边产品对“战士”没有任何战术用途，但却是“笔记本电脑阶层”（指办公室白领）表达品牌认同的一种新方式。
“Palantir doing their version of it is sensible, because who are the people that are buying their clothes? They’re often urban knowledge workers, people that send email all day,” says Derek Guy, a menswear writer. (You may know him as “The Menswear Guy” on social media.) “It’s just a very fashionable garment at the moment for that kind of class.” “Palantir 推出自己的版本是明智的，因为谁在买他们的衣服？他们通常是城市知识工作者，整天发邮件的人，”男装作家德里克·盖伊（Derek Guy）说。（你可能在社交媒体上认识他，即“The Menswear Guy”。）“对于那个阶层来说，这只是目前非常时髦的服装。”
Palantir has something of a cult following already, in part because it has made some investors very rich. It has an engaged, committed base of retail investors and fans who debate what to do about Palantir’s “PR problems” and track company goings-on obsessively. Palantir itself also communicates directly with individual investors or fan communities. (Palantir appears to have previously even hired a moderator from the company’s Subreddit into a communications role.) A line of merchandise beyond the usual tote bag is a way for Palantir to turn these fans and investors into walking billboards. Palantir 已经拥有了一定程度的狂热追随者，部分原因是它让一些投资者变得非常富有。它拥有一个积极且忠诚的散户投资者和粉丝群体，他们会讨论如何应对 Palantir 的“公关问题”，并痴迷地追踪公司动态。Palantir 本身也与个人投资者或粉丝社区直接沟通。（Palantir 似乎此前甚至聘请了其 Subreddit 论坛的一位版主担任公关职位。）除了常见的帆布袋之外，推出一系列周边产品是 Palantir 将这些粉丝和投资者变成“移动广告牌”的一种方式。
Connor, a Palantir fan and merch customer who describes himself as “quite bullish” on the company, also owns tech merch from Tesla, Google, OpenAI, and Apple. “It’s fun to wear these items, and they’re a nod towards technology and brands I like or am associated with because that’s a part of my personality,” Connor said in a message to The Verge. 康纳（Connor）是一位 Palantir 粉丝和周边产品顾客，他形容自己对该公司“非常看好”。他还拥有特斯拉、谷歌、OpenAI 和苹果的科技周边。“穿这些东西很有趣，它们是对我喜欢或与之相关的技术和品牌的致敬，因为这是我个性的一部分，”康纳在给《The Verge》的消息中说道。
Alex, another Palantir fan, has collected several merch items from the company dating back to the early 2000s that he acquired secondhand like a zip-up sweatshirt issued to employees, as well as more recent releases. (Despite their support for Palantir, both Connor and Alex asked that The Verge not use their full names: Connor, because he limits his online presence, and Alex, due to the “uptick in attention” that the company has gotten over their merch.) 另一位 Palantir 粉丝亚历克斯（Alex）收藏了多件该公司自 21 世纪初以来的周边产品，这些产品是他通过二手渠道获得的，例如发给员工的拉链卫衣，以及最近发布的产品。（尽管他们支持 Palantir，但康纳和亚历克斯都要求《The Verge》不要使用他们的全名：康纳是因为他限制了自己的网络曝光，而亚历克斯则是因为该公司因周边产品而获得的“关注度激增”。）