Clarks Originals Celebrates Its NYC Connection In New Documentary
The might be a pair of shoes that’s plastered all over Instagram moodboards today, but as you’d imagine like with many OG silhouettes in the sneakersphere, it has a deep-running cultural significance which has cemented its purpose today. So Clarks Originals are celebrating this sentiment, in particular, the Wallabees’ relationship to the fabric of NYC over the past fifty years.
Directed by Set Free Richardson and dubbed, Clarks and New York – Soles of the City, the documentary short features anecdotes from April Walker, , Futura, Dave East, Ghostface Killah and Raekwon (and more), detailing how they came to know the Wallabee and their perspective on why it’s such an important shoe in the hip hop industry.
Since 1967, the shoe has forged ties with many different subcultures and countercultures as a go-to sneaker alternative. Across different decades, the Wallabee became ‘uniform’ for many prominent artists, including , Slick Rick, KRS1 and of course, .
On the documentary, Set Free Richardson said, ‘Clarks was my shoe when it was time to get fly on a higher level than sneakers. They always made me stand out from the rest. I grew up on Wallabees so when I was asked to do the New York story, I said we gotta do it right – from the beginning of hip hop and how it rolled to where we are now. When music cultures adopt a product it helps build a legacy, for me that’s what hip hop did for the Wallabee. I chose a cast that would reflect that, because I wanted people that really are fans of the brand and also know the New York history.'