What do Leica — a German camera manufacturer famous for making ultra-high-quality rangefinder style cameras — and Rag & Bone — an American clothing company known for merging British tailoring and a New York sense of style — have in common? They both like the Leica M Monochrom and the color black… apparently.
Rag & Bone head Marcus Wainwright teamed up with Leica to create a special edition of 125 M Monochrom cameras that play up the little rangefinder’s innate sense of unobtrusive stealth. To that end, nearly all branding is removed and everything that can be made black has been made black with only the most essential of engravings getting a glow-in-the-dark paint.
As for the actual camera-y bits? It’s the same hyper-polarizing M Monochrom (Typ 246) that we’ve grown to love (or hate) in the three years since its introduction. A refresher: it only shoots black and white photos, but, by removing the Beyer color filter from the sensor, the images are sharper and less prone to noise at high ISOs. This stealth edition is paired with Leica’s 35mm f/2 which melds compact design and unbelievably good optics.
So yes, you’re paying $15,750 for a three-year-old camera with no branding to show off and no ability to shoot color photos. But look at the knurling on that lens and tell me you don’t want it.
