Kim Jones spent a decade teaching luxury houses to speak street. Then he put body armour on a basketball shoe from 1917.
Hold it up to the light and the sidewall goes translucent. There’s a smoked TPU shell moulded straight over the canvas, running the toe, the quarter panel, the eyelet row, like somebody dipped the thing. The eyelets are clear plastic. The foxing is egret cream. Underneath all of it sits a Chuck Taylor, completely unchanged.
Converse first made the All Star in 1917. Chuck Taylor’s name went on the ankle patch in 1923 and never came off. It might be the most democratic object in the history of footwear, a shoe worn by basketball players, punks, presidential candidates, broke teenagers and men who own several houses, all of them paying roughly the same for it. The Chuck 70, which arrived in 2013, is the version built back to the heavier 1970s spec. Thicker canvas, higher rubber, a cushioned insole, glossier toe cap. Better made, same shoe.
Kim Jones ran Louis Vuitton menswear from 2011, and in 2017 he put Supreme’s box logo on Vuitton luggage, which more or less ended the argument about whether streetwear and luxury were separate things. He left for Dior Men in March 2018 and picked up Fendi’s womenswear in 2020. His whole career has been about walking things across a line other people were still guarding.
A protective shell, on a shoe whose entire value is that it never needed protecting.
Which is what makes the Utility Wave, out in the spring of 2021, quietly funny. All the technical language of outerwear, exoskeletons and utility and weather sealing, bolted onto the least technical shoe ever made. It reads as a joke about hype. It also just works as a shoe. Both of those are deliberate.
I like the black pair more than the white. Harder to find, easier to wear. It goes with everything a plain black Chuck goes with, which is everything, and then it rewards anybody standing close enough to notice the shoe is wearing a coat.
Size: 12
Material: Canvas/Smoked TPU Shell/Clear Eyelets/Egret Cream Foxing
Colour: Black
Kim Jones spent a decade teaching luxury houses to speak street. Then he put body armour on a basketball shoe from 1917.
Hold it up to the light and the sidewall goes translucent. There’s a smoked TPU shell moulded straight over the canvas, running the toe, the quarter panel, the eyelet row, like somebody dipped the thing. The eyelets are clear plastic. The foxing is egret cream. Underneath all of it sits a Chuck Taylor, completely unchanged.
Converse first made the All Star in 1917. Chuck Taylor’s name went on the ankle patch in 1923 and never came off. It might be the most democratic object in the history of footwear, a shoe worn by basketball players, punks, presidential candidates, broke teenagers and men who own several houses, all of them paying roughly the same for it. The Chuck 70, which arrived in 2013, is the version built back to the heavier 1970s spec. Thicker canvas, higher rubber, a cushioned insole, glossier toe cap. Better made, same shoe.
Kim Jones ran Louis Vuitton menswear from 2011, and in 2017 he put Supreme’s box logo on Vuitton luggage, which more or less ended the argument about whether streetwear and luxury were separate things. He left for Dior Men in March 2018 and picked up Fendi’s womenswear in 2020. His whole career has been about walking things across a line other people were still guarding.
A protective shell, on a shoe whose entire value is that it never needed protecting.
Which is what makes the Utility Wave, out in the spring of 2021, quietly funny. All the technical language of outerwear, exoskeletons and utility and weather sealing, bolted onto the least technical shoe ever made. It reads as a joke about hype. It also just works as a shoe. Both of those are deliberate.
I like the black pair more than the white. Harder to find, easier to wear. It goes with everything a plain black Chuck goes with, which is everything, and then it rewards anybody standing close enough to notice the shoe is wearing a coat.
Size: 12
Material: Canvas/Smoked TPU Shell/Clear Eyelets/Egret Cream Foxing
Colour: Black
