It’s not news that Martine Rose is the GOAT of shoe collabs, her Nike Shox are reaching a very affordable £7k on StockX. And she’s back at it again with another drop of her trusted Clarks collaboration – titled “Coming Up Roses” – expanding her line of reimagined cult silhouettes (plus two new styles) for the fall/winter season.
Since the British designer has joined the brand as guest creative director, she’s taken the aspect of comfort (which is also deeply rooted in her own designs, drawing inspiration from club and rave culture), and blown it up to the max. “What strikes me [about Clarks] is the preoccupation with comfort,” Martine Rose says. “Comfort is the thing. The shoes should feel comfortable for everyone. When I go to the Clarks showrooms, I see buyers take out the inner soles and wiggling them – there’s huge care and attention given to comfort: the sole, how it walks, how it wears.”
For the collection the designer dived into the brand’s rich archive, which covers over two centuries: “I really wanted to understand what Clarks defined as their own DNA,” she says. The brand has a wide collection of mainline shoes “that represents a real democratic span of Clarks, which is for everyone and for everything.”
She adds: “I thought comfort was such an amazing aspect to focus on. I wanted to take that comfort aspect and amplify in the design, like let’s take these styles from the mainline collection – all your carryover styles: a women’s court shoe, a brogue, a kitten heel – and let’s tell this story of comfort but really blow up the comfort, so it’s subverted. Pumped up, comfy shoes, in the most extreme way. Like clouds.” The outcome is puffed out, pillowy silhouettes with inflated down padding and textured leathers, uber comfortable on the inside, and the outside.
“The concept started last season,” she explains – “we thought it deserved a longer period of storytelling.” Instead Martine Rose x Clarks have introduced new colourways and expanded the styles, adding a kitten heel and a clog to the collection. “The clog is the one style that’s completely bespoke,” the designer says, “we wanted to do a men’s style that was almost like a slipper. A comfy, contemporary slipper that you can wear outside.” That’s a style that Martine’s got down, a lot of her designs have that slipper aspect, from her own collection’s loafer mules to her cult Nike Shox.
The core Britishness of the Clarks heritage is also very much down Martine Rose’s lane. “This was a collaboration that needed very little thought, it immediately made sense,” she says. “I’m not sure that my relationship to Clarks is much different than anyone else’s, particularly if you’re British.”
Martine and Clarks go way back. “My first memory of Clarks isn’t any different from anyone else’s, and it’s literally going to get my feet measured in those machines. They don’t do it in the same way now, but as a kid all I remember was the click when they put your feet in that little measuring ladder. They’d move it right down and it clicked on your toes. And I wore Wallabees for school, it was a standard school shoe.” Most of us that have grown up in the UK have that memory of going to Clarks to get school shoes. “That’s where I went to get my children’s first pair of shoes – they’re just reliable.”
Plus, Martine’s Jamaican heritage also complements Clarks’: “Being of Jamaican heritage and the fact that Clarks had a different subcultural life in Jamaica that blew up and influenced style over there.” Since the ‘70s, Clarks has been the most copped shoe brand in Jamaica due to its cult status in the dancehall scene. Vybz Kartel has three songs about Clarks. You can check out AI Fingers’ book Clarks in Jamaica, if you want to read more about the brand’s Jamaican history.
The brand’s legacy spans over 200 years, with multiple different subcultures all over the world adopting Clarks shoes through the years – ranging from school shoes in the UK to rude boys in Jamaica, the ‘90s New York hip-hop scene and Harajuku kids in Tokyo. “They haven’t moved, which is very unusual for a brand that’s 200 years old,” says Martine. “They’ve stayed in the same place [in Somerset]. They have an enormous resource and rich archive that’s beautifully preserved, they’ve got everything there,” she says. And diving into the Clarks archive is where Martine found her title: “There was a newspaper article about a new collection from 1971 – it was called ‘Coming Up Roses’.”
This is what makes Martine Rose so special, she’s always grounded and involved in culture and community. When we ask her who’s her favourite person she’s ever dressed, she ponders: “Working with Kendrick and the relationship we’ve developed has been really exciting – there’s a mutual respect and understanding. But I get as much of a buzz seeing an everyday person on the bus wearing a T-shirt.” She adds: “I went to Rowan’s [bowling alley in Finsbury Park] the other day for a leaving do, and there was a kid on the dancefloor wearing a T-shirt and a pair of jeans – I was so excited!”
We’re about to end our call, but we want to ask her if she’s got any advice for any young creatives out there. “We’re living in a very sped up world, the expectation now is different to the expectation from when I started,” she says. “The expectation now is for everything to happen super fast and it’s an illusion. It’s taken me a long time, and it takes most people a long time to find their feet, and find out who you really are, and grow as a person, and grow as a designer, it doesn’t happen overnight.”
How do you keep at it? “Don’t be disheartened by the time it takes. It’s worth the time to grow, if you’re in it for the long run. Focus on your craft, and don’t be distracted and disheartened by it not happening quickly,” Martine says. “And emerge yourself in other things, you have to have other skills to bring to fashion as well. Work in bars, clubs, pubs, hairdresser’s, art galleries, libraries – wherever you can be stimulated – bring some other skills in.”
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