Collaborations (Obviously)

Hardly a day goes by now without news of a new high-low pairing set to drop or a rapper gearing up for a social media onslaught to promote his signature shoe, but that (usually) somehow doesn’t make these partnerships any less exciting.

The cultural cachet of a collaboration is obvious – you take two cool things and make them make a baby, with the theory being that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It doesn’t always happen that way, obviously, and can result in a snot-nosed devil child of a shoe which everyone will try to love because they know that’s the right thing to do, but god is it difficult…

Sometimes, though, it just clicks – like Common Projects and MRPORTER’s recent hook-up. It’s hard to predict what’ll appear this year – collabs usually tend to drop from the heavens like those frogs in Magnolia – but if 2015 was anything to go by, we’re onto a winner once again.

One of our favourites was cult German store A Kind Of Guise’s partnership with adidas – a hard to find drop that’s definitely worth searching around for: a deft mix of waffle sections, webbed outsoles and cool ‘raw cotton’ styling.

Retailer Skate also hooked up with New Balance for a car-inspired camel and black suede block dubbed the M998 ‘PRMR’, and who can overlook last summer’s heady brew of Italian label Diadora, Packer Shoes and Wu-Tang Clan’s Raekwon for the N9000 ‘Purple Tape’ to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Rae’s legendary album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx? We’ve got fingers crossed for more of the same.

DIADORA X PACKER SHOES X RAEKWON N9000

PREMIER X NEW BALANCE 998 PRMR