Footwear has made a decisive switch in the last year, and iconoclastic designer Salehe Bembury is partly to thank. His unmistakable collaborations with Crocs, New Balance and Clarks Originals have rid the brands of their tired cultural baggage and made them once again a must have for the style conscious, with the biggest fashion houses currently following his lead towards elevated casual and outdoor wear that works on the runway.
The shift is impossible not to notice when you take a quick look around. Even the most iconic Jordans are sitting on shelves, Adidas is struggling to figure out how it’s going to sell off all the remaining stock from the now-defunct Yeezy brand and streetwear from even a few years ago feels as if it’s from a different era, a victim of its own manufactured hype cycle, as consumers look for something different and distinctive.
Meanwhile, Bembury’s Pollex Croc, a design that quite literally embraces his inimitable fingerprint, sells out every drop instantly. Part of the reason it works so well is due to the authenticity that his personal brand emanates, a vibe that his Croc captures seemingly effortlessly.
That partnership is set to expand even further. This coming week, Bembury is launching the first Pollex Crocs Slides in a “Citrus Milk” colourway on his brand Spunge’s website, with a global release forthcoming–and surely more on the way.
During a stop in Dubai, we sat down with Salehe Bembury himself to discuss the state of the shoe game. Read our full conversation below.
Salehe Bembury sits down with Esquire Middle East
I think we’ve seen a cultural shift away from streetwear, away from especially basketball sneakers, but in some cases, sneakers in general. We’ve seen Clarks Originals rise, Crocs rise, Birkenstocks shoot back up.
How do you see that from your perspective? Is this a conscious cultural shift made by designers behind the scenes getting bored with the old things, or is this more just the way things are moving and you “go with the tide”?
Salehe Bembury: I think that throughout the majority of COVID, we were always discussing the financial impact. The health impact, and all the things that you’d see on the news every day. But one of the things that isn’t often discussed is how it affected product and design. Examples of that are how society became more aware of their bodies, people started moving more and realizing that they had a body that they could change or make healthier, people started paying more attention to their homes, what’s in their home, because they’re spending so much time in it. And then people also started valuing comfort more. For the longest time sweatpants were seen as this like, Sunday uniform. And now you know, you can go to almost like a formal event in some tailored sweatpants.
As you have.
SB: I absolutely have, many times! It’s strange that it had to happen from a worldwide pandemic, but I’m really inspired by this mass shift in perception, or in regards to product, into maybe the value that a piece has, and then the opportunities that it creates. I think this Croc is a perfect example of that.
It’s shifting though, because on one side you have “casual wear” (if you want to call it that) which has always been a big part of like, people who have a very casual mindset. I think Post Malone embodies that right? His Crocs collab is a big reason that they sort of became cool again.
But then on the other side with ASICS becoming cool, New Balance coming back, we’re seeing a rise in “dressing-up” in a kind of nineties prep direction. My brother was running marketing at Stray Rats before, and he then moved over to J Crew, which I think is indicative of that switch.
SB: That’s such a… that’s at two opposite sides of the spectrum.
Yeah! And the designer J Crew hired to run Men’s is the guy who used to do Supreme. So it seems streetwear minds are consciously pivoting in a different direction.
SB: But at the same time, it’s in the way that your consumer grows up with you. As a creative, you gain new interests, you have new and different life experiences. Like, I don’t think I could have created something like this Croc early in my career, because I just had zero interest in things that didn’t have laces and didn’t have one of the big four or five logos on them. And, you know, you open up your horizons a little bit as you get older.
I think a lot of the brands with, say, swoosh logos, also dropped the ball in some ways.
SB: No comment. (Laughing)
High scarcity, poor quality control, the people they’ve decided to work with, and the other thing we obviously won’t talk about is certain brands that have stopped existing.
SB: What brand was that?
[We mean Yeezy but we’re not going to say it out loud]
SB: Oh.. Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah…
Can’t talk about that?
SB: [Laughs] I don’t want to.
But yeah, I feel like as those things happen, that just makes other dominoes fall and allows other people into that space. I think you’re someone who has very consciously leaned into your own identity as strongly as possible. Putting yourself out there with the things you embraced, lifestyles you’ve embraced, and really putting parts of who you are in your public-presenting self.
Your influences for New Balance and Crocs projects seem to be the calm, serene landscapes, being outdoors, things like that. Things that haven’t been embraced or explored traditionally in “streetwear” per se.
SB: Well you spoke about it more from like a region perspective, but I would even say that in regards to race, you know? The outdoor community, for the longest time has been very exclusive and exclusionary of brown people, females, and there’s probably like 10 other groups of people I could list.
So I think the opportunity in that regard is to make everyone feel welcome. You know, Nike has that line, “if have a body, you’re an athlete”. I think if you have feet, you can go for a f***ing hike [laughs]. But yeah, it’s really about education, and making people feel welcome and showing them that you don’t need to live next to a mountain to experience the outdoors, the outdoors can be your backyard, the outdoors can be your local park, it’s all around you.
And there’s so many things that can take place in that space. So I really just want to explore things that are more authentic to myself. And I really want to just continue to cultivate an audience and a community. Which I’ve really even felt here. Often when if I travel I’ll have people come up to me, but they usually are wearing a certain uniform, and that uniform involves some Supreme and some Jordans so its kind of identifiable from a distance.
Yeah, ‘Hypebeasts’.
SB: I don’t want to say that word because that’s almost derogatory at this point [Laughs]. But here, the amount of love that I’ve received has been beautiful. It’s probably been the most love I’ve ever received in any place I’ve ever traveled to. So not only is it insight, but it’s just it’s been poetic to experience.
So where do you want to go from here? What’s on the horizon? Is it more Crocs or Balance? You’re also working with Lebron James…
SB: Really, it’s just about continuing to be challenged, continuing to take on projects that makes sense for me. I recently turned down a golf project because I don’t play golf, right? The best critique and compliment I could ever get is when I show people my work, and they go, “Wow, that’s so you”. I love that and I get it often. So if I can maintain that narrative, I think I’ll be I’ll be all right.
Absolutely.
Transcription: Ashish Menon
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