Big Daddy Kane’s high-top fade hairstyle.Kool Moe Dee’s wrap-around Porsche sunglasses are a Hip-Hop style that is uniquely his: Not unlike other Hip-Hop stars like: And then after that light is shined on it, it grows to a magnitude that is unexpected, and I think that's what happened to the Wallabee.8. I think hip-hop-from the Jesus piece chain, to the Wallabees, to the Air Force One, to the ‘pass the Courvoisier’-hip-hop has always took a product or a brand or an object and kind of shined a light on it. When you look at Ghostface, he was calling himself the Wallabee Champ there on the album cover. The storytelling of hip-hop has always described it. “But hip-hop has always been talking about products and how you wear something or how this looks. “A lot of other music genres just make songs and maybe describe a moment or a time or place” he says. And that's what makes it beautiful.”Īs for why hip-hop in particular picked up on that beauty, Richardson has an explanation. Wallos make the cut of the list of however you trying to do it. Know what I mean? You can have on such and such high design, whatever. “No matter what's going on, no matter what year, timeframe we in, no matter what everybody got on around you, if you got a pair of Wallos, it completes your outfit. “The Wallabee is in a class of its own,” Jadakiss, who narrated Clarks and New York, explained at the panel. But whichever side of the law they were on, the kids who saw their shoes recognized something. Of course, the guys in Wallys weren’t all hustlers. I'm 15 years old, I'm waking up every day, faithfully ironing slacks and shirts and going to Nassau street.” ![]() “They would be dressed up on the block like Wall Street.” Eventually, he says, he and his friends ditched their sneakers, put on some Wallabees, and started dressing up. And they would be fly,” Raekwon, founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan and an avowed Wallabee wearer himself, explained during a panel discussion about the Clarks and New York documentary in which he appeared alongside groupmate Ghostface Killah. “When crack first hit the scene, I'm seeing a bunch of West Indians out there-Guyanese, Jamaican-just really coming in my neighborhood and establishing this criminal enterprise. But just as crucial to the rise of the Wallabee were the guys on the streets-the hustlers from the West Indies, notably Jamaica, where Clarks have a deeply devoted fan base (one that Al Fingers explored in depth in his book Clarks in Jamaica, and one that Clarks honored last year with its Jamaica Pack). So looking at Clarks and the history, it's like, ‘Okay, let's start from early '80s of hip-hop, who was wearing them?” “And the story usually matches a timeline. ![]() “Anytime I try to direct something it’s about the story,” Richardson says. He wasn't just the director of this, he truly was a partner in bringing it to life.”Ī big part of that was digging into the whole story of the Wallabee in New York from the beginning, back when it first infiltrated sneaker and hip-hop culture. He's a partner in this and it was absolutely fantastic. And from that moment on, he's part of the family. So that was one thing that was very particular. “And that was one thing that was super authentic to us. ![]() “He knows the culture really, really, really well,” says Tara McRae, Clarks’ chief marketing and digital officer. “And it's been a great ride in history ever since.” “I said, ‘Look, let me take this further and really fold out the history of hip-hop and the right people to really paint this picture the right way,’” he explains. ![]() Plus, he knew how to tell the whole story. That’s why Richardson-who got his first pair of all-black Wallys at the Colosseum in Jamaica, Queens in the late ‘80s-was down to team up with the Somerset, England-based brand to highlight the story of a left-of-center shoe introduced in the '60s that stood apart from the Shell Toes and Cortezes of the young hip-hop scene and still managed to become a fixture seen on the feet of everyone from Slick Rick to the Wu-Tang Clan. “It's a part of who I am, a part of my culture, my history.” He’s also “a Clarks head and a Wallabee head since I was young,” he explains. They sit in the realm of hip-hop I don't think no other shoe sits in that same space.” Richardson is the creative director of Compound and the filmmaker behind the recent short-form documentary Clarks and New York: Soles of the City, which traces the Wallabee’s history in the five boroughs over the last four decades. “They sit in between sneaker culture, and they're not a sneaker. They have an original place in the shoe wear world,” says Set Free Richardson of the Wally. “I think it's in the name, Clarks Originals. The Origin of the Ever-Enduring Clarks Desert Boot.The Clarks Originals Desert Trek Is a Cult Classic.
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