Winter footwear staple UGG has tapped designer Shayne Oliver for a new Fall/Winter 2022 collaboration. True to Oliver’s style, the new capsule flips UGG’s signature Classic Boot by launching it into the future.
When Shayne Oliver first burst onto the fashion scene with “Hood By Air” back in 2010, the New York designer garnered a cult following of streetwear devotees. In addition to his label, Oliver has briefly designed for Helmut Lang and launched Anonymous Club, a creative studio for art, performance, music, and fashion. The multihyphenate’s latest foray for his fans to get excited about? A collection of futuristic Ugg boots.
And then there’s UGG. Classic Uggs, which took off in the 2000s, have been experiencing a revival in recent years, worn by trendsetting stars like Gigi Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, and Kendall Jenner. They have also been upping their fashion ante by collaborating with the likes of Telfar and Cher. But these new UGG x Shayne Oliver boots are decidedly more subversive and modern.
As Vogue reports, for Oliver, the inspiration to design Ugg boots stems from his personal connection to the cozy, shearling-lined shoes. Growing up in New York in the 2000s, the designer says Uggs were all the rage in school, and he felt inspired to offer up a new take on them. “The comfortability of Uggs made them a part of the language in New York,” says Oliver. “It became a staple, and it really transcended all boundaries of class.” He is drawn to Uggs as an “anti-fashion” shoe and as a style disruptor. “There’s always a level of cynicism that I like to have,” says Oliver. “To be the devil’s advocate, in a way.”
Because he’s been wearing Uggs since middle school, he knew a thing or two about the silhouette and liked the idea of giving them a cool factor. “When I grew up, it was extremely popular to mix suburban elements into an urban wardrobe,” Oliver says. “The cool girls at my school were always buying the baby pinks and blues. For me, I found secondhand ones and wore them with ripped jeans; the wear and tear of them felt really cool and weathered. That’s why I did leather instead of suede; it felt aged already.” He was also inspired to design Uggs that felt slightly polarizing—just like the stars wearing them back in the aughts, such as Pamela Anderson and Snookie. “They were not acknowledged as fashion heroes; people saw them as a faux pas,” says Oliver. “But they were actually extremely inspiring to a lot of kids of my generation.”
Featuring two footwear styles, the capsule includes the low Armourite Sabatons and the tall Armourite Greaves. Appearing in classic hues of white and black, the shoes are done up in a club-like design with paneled legs, a perforated leather upper and foot fasteners. The shoes come complete with an upcycled wool and lyocell sock liner and removable toe cover and outer shaft.
Given the Ugg collaboration is one of the designer’s first projects following his brand’s hiatus in 2017 and subsequent relaunch last year, Oliver says he’s excited for even more projects to come out. “This collaboration came at a time when I was reflecting on my time at [Hood by Air] and moving into my own entity of Shayne Oliver,” the designer says. “This is the reboot—the first step toward me independently showing as a designer, owning that language, and forging my own path forward.”
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