Cult North London Sandwich Shop Ends Up on a £250 Comme des Garçons T-Shirt

Sandwich maestro Max Halley of Max’s Sandwich Shop in Crouch End is the latest London restaurant personality to be celebrated by the fashion industry.

Following in the catwalked footsteps of St. John and Noble Fine Liquor (P. Franco, Bright, and Peg’s parent company) which made their own high fashion debut in 2019, Japanese designer Junya Watanabe’s Comme des Garçons MAN spring/summer 2021 collection features a t-shirt bearing a full reprint of the front cover of Halley’s 2018 debut book Max’s Sandwich Book: The Ultimate Guide to Creating Perfection Between Two Slices of Bread. It is priced at £250 and can be bought from the ultra-trendy department store Dover Street Market.

Halley, who has had to keep the deal under wraps since last year told Eater London that he was, to say the least, surprised that Watanabe wanted to use his illustration — a visual deconstruction of Halley’s most famous sandwich, the “ham, egg, and chips” which features the chef’s own handwriting of the words “crunchy,” “cold,” “soft,” “hot,” “sour,” and “sweet” — the holistic taste and texture matrix which Halley believes all sandwiches ought to master.

“How they found out about the book I have no idea!” Halley told Eater London. “I literally still can’t believe it!!!!!! Actual fucking Commes Des Garçon Hahahahahahahahahha.”

Watanabe’s collection also includes a reversible jacket — priced at a cool £915 — which is lined with Halley’s design. “LOOK AT THAT JACKET LINING!!!! Hahahahahahahahahahahaha UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE,” Halley observed recently on Instagram.

Watanabe’s latest collection pays homage not just to Halley, but to another cookbook — a big deal in 2019, New Zealand chef Josh Niland’s The Whole Fish Cookbook: New Ways to Cook, Eat and Think whose cover is transposed onto another t-shirt design.

Halley confirmed that the design had been licensed “for a fee” but did not reveal how much; adding only that “they’ve been so kind and fun to deal with the whole time.”

After Vetements and McDonald’s, SACAI and Bar Italia, and now this, where next for fashion and food?