New backing, familiar faces and a documentary in the works. Parkour’s most cryptic group chat has a second act.
By Shaun Wood
Parkour has had a rollercoaster couple of years. Somewhere between the highs, the lows and the usual business of debating if Dom is human or an alien, Team Farang announced a welcome surprise: They are coming BACK! Which is great news for everyone who took their departure personally, and anyone whose favourite harem pants are now full of holes. Back in July 2024, Farang announced they were shutting down their clothing line, it seemed to come out of nowhere and the community shared a collective moment of sadness, followed by a fairly reasonable question: hang on, is that the whole thing done? Farang have always been good at being vague, we all remember the beach, right? The clothing was stopping. That much was clear. What it meant for the team, the films and everything people associated with the name was harder to pin down. For a lot of us, that was the part that stung. You can buy another T-shirt. It’s harder to replace the feeling a crew gives you—the urge to book a flight, find your mates and spend an afternoon somewhere you probably shouldn’t be. A quick disclosure: I co-founded Farang, so there’s some personal history here. You’re allowed to factor that into my enthusiasm. And the occasional cheap shot. So, what does the return actually look like? Farang have partnered with Japanese workwear brand CO-COS. The arrangement brings production support and backing, giving the team more room to focus on designing clothes and making things worth watching. That might be the least glamorous sentence in this article, but it’s an important one. Creative freedom is much easier to enjoy when you’re not also trying to sort out a shipment of trousers or dealing with customer complaints. There are two sides to the clothing: Farang’s parkour performance range, and separate workwear designed for CO-COS. Which makes a certain amount of sense. Both audiences need clothes they can move in. One is just more likely to have permission to be on the building site. The line-up includes Jason Paul, Anan Anwar, Dominic Di Tommaso, Valtteri Luoma-aho and Joe Scandrett. Plenty of familiar faces, and plenty of skill to pay attention to when a camera comes out. They’ve also filmed a documentary spanning Vietnam, Paris and Japan, expected later this year. That’s the bit I’m particularly keen to see. Give that group some time, a few locations and room to follow an idea, and I’m interested in what comes back. Don’t expect a return to regular YouTube updates, though. The plan is to put more into considered documentaries and longer pieces. There’s still plenty we don’t know. How this next chapter develops, what the documentary looks like, and how much Farang will actually tell us before any of it happens. But it’s good to have something to look forward to. We’ll keep an eye on all things Farang. They’re back. Further clarification may take three to five business years.