CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN

We haven’t heard much to note from the iconic British footwear brand Dr Martens of late, deciding to take their foot off the paddle when it comes to great Design lead Collaborations. Since the like of their amazing partnerships with the likes of A.Sauvage, RAF Simons and Yohji Yamamoto. But boy are they coming back with a bang for this season, first up they have launched a tie up with globally renowned & unique American apparel brand Engineered Garments.

Founded in 1999 by vintage-clothing-hoarder, Daiki Suzuki, Engineered Garments takes its name from a pattern maker’s comment that these clothes were more engineered than designed. Taking cues from his extensive archive of sportswear, workwear and highly-functional military garb, each piece from Engineered Garments has more details than you’d ever notice. For their Dr Martens project they have transformed the legendary low top ‘1461’ style, Suzuki incorporates an asymmetrical vamp and eyelets system. The concept has been built with the intention to fuse and craft the very essence of both brands through a unique design and premium lens.

Next up we see the fruits of their collaborative loins with the hottest thing in fashion right now, Demna Gvasalia’s Parisian fashion collective, Vetements. With their shared non-conformist attitude and appreciation of expert craftsmanship Gvasalia gas interpreted a 10-eye black leather boot with a side zip entry to keep the laceless look functional.

Have you not heard Art is the new Rock n Roll, it’s not about cool bands living the rock n roll lifestyle anymore, forget your 1975’s, Artic Monkeys or Vampire Weekend, yeah shove em out the hotel window with you TV, if you can get it off the wall. It’s all about your artists now, no not DiVinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, sorry I mean, Picasso, although he was very Rock n Roll. Art is where it’s at and the cutting edge of this is Street Art.

In homage to the new Masters New Look Men have teamed up with 4 street artists to create an 8 piece unique print capsule collection. The artists in question are Pistache, The Doodle Man, Si Mitchell and Mr Oliver Switch. Want to know a little more about these creative genii ?

Firstly, Pistache is an artist partnership between Nick and Jamie- two brothers who hand paint custom surfboards, skateboards, shoes, hats and murals for private clients. They also paint, draw, screen print, photograph, film and tattoo anything and anyone they can get their hands on.
Keeping things fresh and not being shackled to one style is at the heart of Pistache’s values. In their own words, “We’re also not too precious about the art we create, we just want it to find a good home with someone who loves it. What they do with it after that is up to them.”

Then we have, a crazy doodler from England, The Doodle Man’s work contains a mixture of characters, objects and patterns that contain influence from cereal boxes, video games and old cartoons. He describes his style as “Graffiti Spaghetti” because it twists and tangles over everything in its path. You can see most of Doodle Man’s work in London, climbing up walls in the form of murals or installations consuming the streets.

Next up we have Mr. Oliver Switch is a graffiti artist based in the UK. His work is principality comprised of photorealistic images blown up and distorted to surreal proportions. In his own (quite long) words: “If pressed for an explanation I’d have to say my work is an obfuscated mnemonic reportage and synaesthetic, paradolic divination via a tranderivational search of the preconscious, concerning psychonautic and sociodynamic investigations periodically through entheogenics, disassociatives, Thelemic and Discordian practices, lucid dreaming, neuro linguistics, philosophical thought experiments and theoretical physics, utilising contextual abstraction to communicate between subjectively and objectively referenced models of reality expressed through idiosyncratic semiotics in the medium of collage, ink, sketching and photorealistic aerosol paint techniques… but I can be a bit of a sesquipedalian git about this sort of self promotion.”

Finally, currently residing in Cambridgeshire, Si Mitchell describes himself as a PUNK artist. He is an accomplished illustrator with previous clients including Green Day, McFly, BBC and E4. His artwork is comical and colourful with loads of character and can also be found adorning the walls of London buildings as part of street art group Lost Souls.

In fact to launch this arty collaboration they held a unique instillation with The Doodle Man in their Oxford Street flagship store window on Saturday where he doodled live for, a staggering, 8 hours !!!

When you think of Ireland, what comes into your head? Guinness, the Craic, green rolling fields, Father Ted, U2, shamrock, literature giants like Joyce, Behan, Yeats, Wilde, maybe diddly diddly music. But I guarantee trainers or sneakers certainly wouldn’t be at the top of your list, well that might well be about to change, let us introduce you to KING OF SOLES.

Glenn Heaslip is the Mastermind behind Ireland’s first Sneaker brand, King of Soles dreamed up over three years ago while he was bartending for half minimum wage in Spain, working 16 hour shifts, and getting one day off a month. He returned back to his Mammy in County Cavan for Christmas 2013, with €700 to his name and his trusted laptop all time this concept was bubbling and festering in his mind for years. It was reignited when he read a piece on the businesses with the highest mark ups, and thought the shoe industry was obscene in terms of how much and how regularly they overcharge customers. Glenn sat down made accounts on ebay and other local classified ads sites and started ordering all sorts of stuff wholesale, from facial toners, to robot hoovers to jerseys, vaporizers, you name it he sold it. All the time with this concept burning a hole in his head.

He was also inspired by graffiti & spray painted custom shoes. He’d seen spray painted shoes selling at €300 a pair, was impressed but always thought to himself, the spray paint will inevitably one day crack and the integrity of the design ruined. As Glenn himself says, “I wanted custom shoes but I wanted the design to last. I also thought people should be getting these shoes much cheaper, and much better quality, the design patterns should be printed into a leather fabric, not sprayed onto it.”

Having worked on the shoes for over 3 years now, perfecting them, every time he’d get a sample made, Glenn would see room for potential improvement. The ethos behind the business is simple, “Very few people can say that they have bought a nice looking pair of shoes for an affordable price and that they have lasted years. King Of Soles will provide shoe quality that will allow you to stay out of the shoe stores for a long time. Unlike brands that mass-manufacture low quality products in wasteful factories, at King Of Soles we believe everyone should have access to beautiful, affordable shoes that last a lifetime.” Says Heaslip, “I’m selling Hightops made from Premium Action Leather Upper, with a Mesh Lining, Chambray Insole, TPR Outsole, and each Pair comes with a set of Custom Screw On Lace Tips, with King Of Soles and the Crown, laser etched onto them. All of this at €70 per Pair! Also my Screw On Lace Tips, screw directly onto the lace, and are tightened with the included screwdriver.Whereas others, have a tube which slides over the lace, and the Lace Tip screws onto the tube. Of course what happens is the tube just slides off and both are lost, that’ll never happen with mine!” Well you can’t argue with him and like many of his countrymen he has the gift of the gab.

The first designs are available to pre-order from 27th February include the Chemp Shoe (Che Guevara + Hemp Material = Chemp Shoe), hightops – PacAttack and Rasta.