The Garbstore's Ian Paley Talks His Reebok Collaboration and Not Giving Haircuts

From the inside out.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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London's The Garbstore and Reebok have collaborated on 12 pairs of sneakers that are built backwards. The inside linings of the sneakers are on the outside. The Garbstore founder Ian Paley discussed with us why he decided to make the sneakers this way for the "Outside In" collection.

If you're a fan of style, you're familiar with The Garbstore and its history of selling quality clothes with a history, and it's this fascination that prompted Paley to get his hands dirty and dig into Reebok's storied archives. This resulted in Paley going back into 25 years of Reebok's heritage and re-tooling the Reebok Pump technology into something that hadn't been done before, working on the Leather Classic 6000Insta Pump Fury, Pump Running DualBlucher Trainer, and Workout Plus.

Paley told us that he's worked on shoes before, executing this collaboration with Grenson just last year, and he wanted to take the shoe apart to see how it was put together, how he could improve it in his own way. He soon discovered that the inside of the sneaker was more interesting than the outside, and Paley started applying this concept to his collaboration with Reebok.

What first started as a quest to find the oldest Reebok model he could work on, ended up in Paley designing sneakers that still look like today's technology. He's had a long history with Reebok sneakers, as they've become street icons in Britain where, Paley says, people are focused more on style than performance—he can even trace which sneakers were popular in what year by looking at how people were wearing their jeans.

Paley also opened a new location of The Garbstore in Los Angeles, a city that he finds eerily familiar to London—style wise, that is. There were even exclusive color schemes of the Leather Classic 6000 for the opening of his shop. The sneakers are still available online, but if you come to Paley's shop, don't expect anything other than clothes, sneakers, and good service.

"It's Garbstore, literally, 'clothes store,' Paley said. "If you want a cup of coffee or a haircut, go to the fucks down the block."