Supreme’s Fall/Winter 2021 season started off with a bang. The delivery of several hit t-shirts, a resurrected version of the Supreme Arabic Logo, and several exciting accessories began the season on a high note. In the two weeks since then, Supreme has returned to two storied collaborative partnerships in back-to-back weeks. In Week 2, the streetwear brand reunited with the New York Yankees on the first part of what’s assumed to be a two part collaboration. Supreme’s Week 3 collaboration is with Clarks Originals on the storied Wallabee, a New York hip-hop staple.
This Fall/Winter 2021 Supreme Clarks Originals collaboration marks the 12th time that the two have worked together, the sixth time that the Wallabee has been the focus of the partnership, and the second time they’ve applied a woven execution to the shoe. Past Supreme Clarks Originals Collaborations have certainly taken the shoe to new frontiers, but this Woven Wallabee may be the furthest that the collaboration has gone. For this season’s iteration of the Clarks Originals Wallabee, Supreme has elected to modify the actual structure of the shoe, going beyond the color and texture modifications of past collaborations. This Supreme Clarks Originals Wallabee features a new Woven design, creating a breathable shoe that could be likened to a Croc-like rubber clog with its visible holes that reveal the socks or foot inside – similar to the CNCPTS x Clarks Tawyer from 2014 which wasn’t a Wallabee, but is very close.
Supreme’s first Clarks Originals collaboration was released in 2011 and featured the release of a new style, the Desert Chukka. That collaboration included five colorways of a simple and understated nubuck suede boot. The partnership’s first Wallabee collaboration came one year later in 2012 and manifested itself in a croc-embossed boot that was made available in four different colors.
Since beginning their work with the Wallabee in 2012, Supreme has continued to deliver new and interesting collaborative iterations of the shoe. In 2016, Supreme and Clarks Originals released their first Wallabee with Woven details, though this version didn’t quite change the structure of the shoe so much. Instead of featuring woven details that covered most of the shoe and exposed its insides, the two brands delivered a shoe that featured a far less structural and far more aesthetic woven suede upper, similar to Bottega Veneta’s iconic weave.
The creative capacity of the Supreme Clarks Originals partnership extends beyond just texture, finding its way deep into patterns and materials as a part of past collaborations as well. For their Spring/Summer 2019 collaboration, Supreme and Clarks Originals delivered four colorways of a Wallabee covered in bandana print. In the way of materials, the two brands delivered a water and stain resistant GORE-TEX version of the Clarks Originals Wallabee in the fall of 2019.
The Supreme x Clarks Originals partnership delivers a clear nod by the streetwear brand to their home city’s connection to the shoe through hip-hip. Similar to a pair of Timberlands or Air Force 1s, the Clarks Originals Wallabee is emblematic of New York hip-hop culture. The shoes became a favorite of a number of New York hip-hop artists in the 1990’s and 2000’s from Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, and other members of the Wu-Tang Clan, to Nas (who was featured in a lookbook for Aimé Leon Dore’s recent Wallabee collaboration). Because of the storied history and significance of the shoe in New York City, it makes sense that Supreme has now delivered six different versions in 24 different colorways.
The Supreme x Clarks Originals Woven Wallabee was released at the retail price of $178 and can be shopped in every colorway on StockX below.
