Founder Dimitri van Eetvelde shares the story behind one of our most iconic pieces: the Lands Between Printed Bomber. Created as part of ARK/8’s official collaboration with Elden Ring, this jacket transforms a beloved in-game detail into a luxurious, technically sophisticated garment - and celebrates the journey that brought it to life.

The Lands Between Printed Bomber Jacket is our flagship piece for the Elden Ring collaboration. And honestly, across this collection - and all the collections we’ve made so far - it’s one of my favourite pieces.

The design itself is very simple. It’s the map of the game, of course. But what really made it interesting for us is how we approached the game itself. Every time we work on a new title, we try to figure out what it’s about. What do we feel when we play it?

With Elden Ring, one of the core experiences is exploration - discovering new places, new challenges, insanely difficult bosses. And the map plays such a central role in that. It’s something that slowly unveils itself as you go, and visually, it’s just beautiful. It’s stylised in this way that feels ancient and magical at the same time. So we looked at that and thought, “This could be something.”

We spoke with Bandai Namco and asked if anyone had used the map before - and they were actually surprised we even wanted it. We requested the biggest version they had, and they came back with a ridiculously large file — I think it was around 5GB. Which was perfect. It meant we had all the detail we needed to make it really work.

That was the concept - but from there, we wanted to elevate it and make it ARK/8. We didn’t want to just slap the map on a T-shirt. We wanted it to live on a beautiful, luxurious fabric. So we picked a recycled nylon from Olmetex in Italy. They make these incredible, high-performance, beautifully constructed textiles over in Como. It felt like the perfect combination: something technical, something sustainable, something special.

Then came development - which, for us, is such a key part of the process. Once a design is approved by the IP partner, development is where you turn a 2D concept into a functioning, high-end garment. And for this jacket, that was the most challenging part.

We had to get the print just right - in terms of colour accuracy and detail - and it was surprisingly hard. We did five or six strike-offs, which are basically printed swatches, before we were happy. Sometimes the colours were too saturated, sometimes we lost detail, or the sea areas came out looking too green. It was a really time-consuming process, but we pushed through until it felt faithful to the original and beautiful on fabric.

This isn’t a repeatable pattern - it’s an actual asset that needs to be placed exactly right on every single jacket. That’s really unusual, especially for an all-over print like this. The Erdtree had to sit in the right place. The coastlines, the borders - everything needed to be consistent. So when we spoke to our factory in Portugal, they told us it would be very difficult. If we used machines, the print would shift, even slightly, and that just wasn’t acceptable.

So we pushed for it to be precise. And they ended up switching to a manual process. Every single jacket was hand-aligned by a worker at the factory. It took hours to do just one jacket, because they had to make sure everything matched perfectly - including the front pockets, which added another layer of complexity. But we got there. And when we saw the final pieces, we knew it had been worth it.

Like all our outerwear, we were also very particular about the details. We used metal Lampo zippers - super high-quality, made in Italy - and focused on durability. Sustainability is really important to us at ARK/8, but it’s not just about using recycled fabrics. It’s about making things that last. So for this piece, we made no compromises. We chose the most premium hardware and fabrics we could find, and worked with a factory that could deliver absolute precision.

In the end, the whole process took over a year. But it’s one of our most successful items - and I think a big part of that is that it doesn’t just reflect the complexity of the design, but of the development. That’s a side of fashion I didn’t fully understand when I started, but now it’s one of the most exciting parts of the job.

And of course, I’m a huge fan of Elden Ring personally. So for us, it wasn’t just about creating a cool jacket - it was about doing justice to this incredible game that so many people love. We wanted to make the best version of it that we could. I think we did.