Painter’s pants, utility jackets and overalls are making themselves at home everywhere from the runways of Paris and Tokyo to everyday wardrobes. But while fashion’s biggest names are borrowing from the factory floor, South African workwear stalwart Sweet-Orr has been making the real thing for generations. Now Sweet-Orr & Co., the fashion label from the heritage industrial workwear company, is putting its own spin on the classics with its first Spring/Summer 2026 collection.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The collection is full of colour, with Painter’s Pants, known as the Sweet-Orr’s, with traditional painter-pant detailing in a modern, easy to style silhouette, in every shade from butter yellow and raspberry to periwinkle blue, marine green and rich chocolate brown. There’s plenty of denim too, from dark to light washes, from the Wappinger Trucker Jacket, to the bib and brace dungarees. The collection pays homage to the brand’s earliest styles, all of the designs inspired by the Sweet-Orr archive. Standouts include the rust-coloured Uncle Jim Chore Jacket and the oversized butcher’s stripe Oil Jacket, complete with a wonderfully retro Sweet-Orr embroidered patch. And because you can never have too many accessories, there are sling bags, bucket hats, beanies and peak caps to complete the look.
“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We’re taking the workwear we’ve made for generations and having some fun with it, whether that’s through colour, different washes or little details,” says Vanessa Govender, Product and Manufacturing Executive at Sweet-Orr. “I love our Painter’s Pants. Give me the periwinkle blue pair, a crisp white shirt and some heels, and I’m ready to go out to dinner,” adds Govender.
Workwear in its DNA
Sweet-Orr’s story began in 1871 in Wappingers Falls, New York, where James Orr and his nephews Clayton and Clinton Sweet, started making hardwearing clothes for working people. An early pioneer of denim workwear, the company may even have been the first commercial jeans producer, according to The New York Times. In 1931, Sweet-Orr arrived in South Africa to meet the growing demand for protective clothing in the booming gold-mining industry. Today, its clothing is manufactured in Cape Town, where that workwear heritage is finding a whole new audience.
The collection is made at Sweet-Orr’s Elsies River factory, where some employees have worked for decades, “We make clothes to last, not just for a season, but for generations,” says Vanessa.
The Spring/Summer 2026 collection is available now at sweetorrandco.com or from the Sweet-Orr & Co. showroom, at 36, 16th Street in Elsies River Industrial, Cape Town.