STEPNEY WORKERS CLUB X STUDIO HAGEL
East London’s Stepney Workers Club was founded with the aim to create a cracking version of the simple yet effective footwear staple that is the vulcanised trainer. But now the brand has let Studio Hagel’s founder Mathieu Hagelaars revisit its roster and come up with silhouettes that think outside the usual confines of shoemaking. Together, they’ve come up with EXP, a series of collaborations that merges reliable design methods of bygone days with, as the capsule’s name suggests, experimental ones. They are collabs that embrace the flaws that are bound to surface when thinking out of the box /
The first project from the series of makeovers, EXP1, features S.W.C.’s low-top Dellow and hi-top Varden trainers from the S-STRIKES range, which normally sport a swift, smooth trailing “S”. Here, though, that element of the brand’s DNA is no more: it’s hidden by what looks like strips of duct tape. What’s more, a thicker sidewall of rubber foxing tape overlays the shoe’s heel.
The whole thing looks like it has seen a lot, or that it is still work in progress. As it happens, the duo’s very aware of that. Their ad reads: “There’s never a final design.”
EXP1’s first drop comes in black and is set to launch on June 5th, followed by ecru versions on June 19th in selected retailers and on the S.W.C. webstore.
