Everything You Need to Know About the CNCPTS x Clarks Tawyer

Concepts’ latest project with Clarks is a Sportswear shoe, a sort of evolved Wallabee called the Tawyer. We caught up with Rhett Richardson and the rest of the team at Concepts to talk about how the shoe came about.

When it comes to collaborations, a lot of the time we don’t see the shoe until the final sample has been made, or production pairs have been shot for press photos. But there's always a long process that involves brand politics, creative calibration, the limits of design, and sometimes even geopolitics. The Concepts x Clarks Tawyer's evolution into being included all these things, and we've broken it all down into everything you want to know.

The shoes drop July 26 in-store (10 a.m.) and online (12 p.m.).

This Clarks Tawyer isn’t the first red shoe that Concepts has done, by a long shot. Usually they do shades of red, and burgundy, and it’s all an homage to their city. Cambridge, the hometown of Harvard, plays canvas to the crimson of the university, the brick buildings and sidewalks, Harvard square. “We felt that kind of made the most sense and went well with what we try to present to people.”

Clarks’ creation of a Sportswear program is a major departure for the brand. They’re known for being a comfortable, semi-formal option for wearers who want to maintain a certain level of clean, casual style. The Wallabee has been Clarks stalwart since its introduction in the late-1960s. The Wallabee is synonymous with the brand identity of Clarks. So, when Clarks decided to go all in on a Sportswear program, they had to find a way to bring the Wallabee with it. Enter the Tawyer. “The Tawyer is a great rendition of the Wallabee,” the Concepts team explains. “It’s updated for the kid that doesn’t want to wear crepe or feel that it is too dressy.” The lightweight EVA sole replaces the crepe, making for a shoe that maintains that casual style, without the bulky weight of a more traditional shoe.

The fact that the shoe is releasing in the height of summer isn’t a coincidence. The reputation Clarks has within the sneaker community is of a more formal shoe, perfect in the colder months. Concepts’ wanted to flip that expectation, especially when helping to usher in the Clarks Sportswear brand. “When we originally sat down to discuss it, it was to do something for summer. Clarks is usually known as a heavy shoe with heavy suede or leather, we wanted to flip it and make it lightweight, breathable, and focus the sportswear part of it.” The Sportswear program at Clarks is a departure from the heritage of the company, it is a new direction. So it was the perfect time to change things up. “We wanted to do something with Clarks that was out of the box… To us it didn’t seem like a risk. It seemed like the correct move.”

The design for the perforated pattern might look familiar, especially when talking about the environment that Concepts lives in. But the actual inspiration might surprise you. “The design for the perf is designed off of diamond-plated metal,” the team explains. “We like the angle and the design aesthetic of that and thought it would be good as a lasered perf.” But it wasn’t just an aesthetic choice. To bring the Sportswear angle home, and bucking the tradition of Clarks’ usage of heavy leathers and suede, Concepts wanted to ensure maximum breathability. More than if they had just used leather with a grid of small holes in it. In building a larger perforation pattern, they got that breathability while adding another visual feature to the shoe, “You could also see through the shoe as well,” they explain. That way, your sock game doesn’t go to waste.

Concepts has designed multiple shoes with Clarks in the past. The Ashcott, the Desert Palmer, the Weaver, the Wallabee, and that relationship has been solidified by the launching of Clarks’ Sportswear program. “When they first originally launched Sportswear, they came to us and asked us to work with them on a project,” the Concepts team said. “We really value our relationship with Clarks and the mutual respect we have together from collaborating with them since 1996.” Concepts helped launch the entire program with a party in their store, and that was the inception of this shoe, that was originally a slightly larger project.

When the Tawyer was conceived, Concepts and Clarks designed it with another shoe in a pack. They put together a Wallabee from the Clarks Originals collection. But, with the riots in Vietnam, the shoe got lost during production. The team from Concepts explains, “That shoe got burnt to the ground, along with the factory.”

Frequently when creating a shoe, the collaborative partners go through many samples to reach the perfect incarnation of the concept. Some partnerships develop dozens of samples over years, tinkering tiny details to reach that final perfection. But to create the Tawyer, they got there very fast. “We had only two samples,” the Concepts team says. “The first one wasn’t perforated all the way, it kinda had a stop, and we sampled one with a bulkier sole but felt it was a little bit too heavy. So we decided to stick with the EVA lightweight sole.”

The folks over at Concepts know that what they’re doing isn’t going to be for everyone. As a part of pushing the brands into places that they aren’t used to going, it means that they aren’t going to carry the audience that the brand normally has. They’re going to ruffle some feathers doing what they want to do, but that’s a part of what they’re doing.

Those Reebok Pump Furys that just came out? “We kind of wanted to embrace the awkwardness of the shoe. We knew that it wasn’t for everybody,” the team says, understanding that the model is inherently divisive. “Why not gravitate towards what people don’t get, and make it even harder to wear?”

Brands that have been around forever, like Clarks, have a long history built on aesthetics and loyal customers. They have their wheelhouse and they try to stay in it. Concepts has gotten to where they are today as a collaborator, by stretching those limits. “For us it was a big deal because we kind of got to take Clarks out of their comfort zone,” the Concepts team explains. "One thing that people don’t understand when it comes to a lot of these heritage brands is how conservative they are. Being able to do something so simplistic and then adding a minor detail like that is a huge step for them. Normally when you see a lot of those brands it’s traditionally, it’s color choices, it’s branding, and that’s pretty much the end of the line.”