A-Cold-Wall’s Samuel Ross On His Latest Converse Collab, the Legacy of Virgil Abloh, and More

Image via Converse/Oliver Matich

Image via Converse

The Converse partnership with A-Cold-Wall* kicked off in 2020. Can you talk about how that partnership has evolved since then?

Completely. It started organically through network, shared friends. Acyde [a former marketing manager at Nike, consultant for Converse, and founder of No Vacancy Inn] was over at Converse. Acyde and I have gone back for at least like seven or eight years. It made a lot of sense just to kind of start a dialogue with the company. You gotta kind of think about how long it takes to get the product. It’s like an 18-month lead time. So we started [the 2020 release] in the very beginning of 2019, if not halfway through 2018. We’ve already had what feels like three and a half years of working behind the scenes on product.

When we started, it was more so unique, one-of-one edition products to be developed between A-Cold-Wall* and Converse. What we’ve seen since then is this sensibility and a desire to move from just having one stock drop collaborations, but actually to build in a language with a partner like Converse. So, when it comes to the Aeon, we don’t even necessarily internally refer to it as A-Cold-Wall* x Converse. We say “ACW CNVS,” which is almost like it’s co-brand to a degree. It isn’t just footwear. There’s apparel that will come alongside it as well. So it’s more this idea of building long format relationships which have product and storytelling versus just single spins on classic styles.

I saw you simply tweet, “luxury sportswear.” One, how do you define the term luxury sportswear? And two, does this new silhouette fall into that category for you?

One-hundred percent. You know, I have spent a lot of time over lockdown, as all designers and business owners have, looking at where is there a pocket to tell new stories authentically? We’ve always done runway. I’ve done runway over the last five to six years, but throughout lockdown, I actually moved outside of London back to my hometown, right on the border of ends, right on the border of the hood. That process grounded me deeply and has influenced where I want A-Cold-Wall* to now sit within the market across the long term.

The prospect of luxury sportswear, there’s two things there. One, I’m sick of having to write paragraphs to explain the influences of A-Cold-Wall*. So, it needs to be down to two to four words. So, luxury sportswear is the first way it’s done. The other two words are industrial design. Industrial design. Luxury sportswear. That is A-Cold-Wall*. 

So, it’s been a time to really think about what I want people to take from A-Cold-Wall* having had the time to focus outside of the social bubble or the fashion bubble. And it’s really those four words. How A-Cold-Wall* does that is still finding ways to add engineering and functionality into garments which can be worn day-to-day, which lean into the idea of performance. And it could just be down to comfort and silhouette, looking at more tapered silhouettes, looking at what the European perspective of sportswear is. It’s been a huge part of leaning into that title, luxury sportswear, because we don’t need a European brand to tell an Americana story. What’s the fucking point in that? If I’m gonna have a European luxury brand, it better be telling a story from here. So just taking a bit of time to step out and think about what I have to add to our space culturally, globally, and getting behind that. And then working on really whittling that down to key terms that everyone can see and take something away from.

When a lot of people think of Converse, the first thing that pops in their head is probably a pair of Chuck Taylors. What you’ve created here strays very far away from that. You’ve been given the opportunity to create something that I feel like most people will consider unconventional for Converse. Was there any pushback when you presented this idea? Did you always want to take this partnership in this direction?

I think there’s layers to the partnership, right? So, this piece sits at the top end of the partnership, which is looking at how we can leverage tooling and materials from within the Converse material portfolio. How can we bring in materials, which can really compete against a Gore-Tex ripstop nylon and a neoprene. How can we look at adding in architectural forms, which A-Cold-Wall* has always done with ready to wear. There’s a purity to being able to work with a partner who has the resources to story tell with shape and material in such a way. The other part of the partnership will meet the needs of a classic All-Star, a relaxed, overdyed grey hoodie.

It’s really looking at starting off the partnership at the more conceptual end and as the partnership reveals its additional layers, you’ll start to see some of those more classic styles filter through for day-to-day wear. But it felt quite important, knowing that we were going to hit delays with COVID and production from the very beginning of this collaboration to a degree, to make sure that we did kind of push a bit and make people feel a little bit uncomfortable. But also, we wanted to acknowledge shoes that have come before it that do sit within that lens and vernacular. I see the Aeon piece we’ve done as a directional shoe where you’ll see a trend trickle after the same way as when the Vomero dropped. The amount of shoes that came out after that course of four years, which had either heels or different shapes, that was almost like a trend cycle they brought forth. That’s kind of my role I guess in the space of luxury sportswear, or streetwear, or whatever you wanna call it, to kind of push the edge a bit and open up the door a little bit more, visually at least.

What is your vision for how this shoe lives in the world?

That’s a really good question. I see the shoe taking on two lives, similar to how the Vomero did. On one side, you’re gonna get the purists who want to keep the form exactly as it is and will buy it more as a piece of sculpture, a wearable sculpture, an object of sorts. They understand that there’s been a lot of time looking at how all of those different materials and print techniques can come into play and sit in a very specific way. And then the other part of our community are the makers, the industrial designers, the architects, the graphic designers, the grassroots streetwear men and women who will want to take this shoe and make it their own. 

And I don’t think either of those options are wrong. I just think it’s good to make sure that we get beyond people buying for box rest purposes and actually starting to use and enjoy their shoes and wear them in. One of my favorite things is seeing our shoes worn in. This is why we typically go with muted light tones because they pick up all of the creases and the scuffs. But I’m happy for these to live as a box fresh piece or to be deeply customized.

Speaking on collaboration more generally, it’s such a big part of fashion and sneakers these days. What are your thoughts on the state of collaboration right now? 

My feeling is, general release has been way better than most of the collaborations for a minute, if I’m being proper honest with you. I think that we’re in a space where it’s good for opportunities to be afforded, but if you’re gonna do a collaboration, do it properly or don’t do it. Speaking honestly, I’m not trying to see shit product out. You wanna see product where people have worked to really build something special and really push the partners to bring forward making techniques and different materials, capabilities which aren’t in the remit of independent brands. That’s the whole purpose, right?

It’s to pair creativity and an outside perspective with the engineering and supply chain. If you’re just seeing a shoe come through with a single screen print, it’s not enough, man. It’s 2022. It’s not enough to see the same thing that was happening in 2016 happen. But that’s just my take, I take it very seriously because I see this as industrial design before it’s a sneaker. 

To build off that real quick, part of the reason collaboration sort of feels that way right now is things can get really repetitive. How do you personally avoid that mindset of stagnation or getting into that cycle of repetition? 

My team is my North Star, man. I just look towards the team and I look at how they dress because they are the generation of the now. They’re Gen-Z and millennials. They’re multicultural. They’re men. They’re women. They work on marketing and they work internally on supply chain, production, and engineering. I look at what they wear, look at what they buy, and if the product doesn’t feel like it can fit into their wardrobe, it’s not right. 

Beyond that, at times it’s literally just taking an extra few minutes before sending off a file, rechecking and rescanning swatches and pantones. Being really critical about the objective of the partnership and the product itself often grounds decisions to be made. If the objective is to disrupt and to push and to be bleeding edge, I would develop product in a much more instinctive way where I’m just going off feeling, intuition, and emotion. I need my music loud. I need incense smoking up the room. I need to be in the flow of it because I’m going almost off like instinct and inhibitions. I’m not overthinking. I’m responding to ideas as they kind of flow back and forth.

If we’re now looking at something a bit more mature, maybe we’re talking to an older millennial audience, I will spend a lot more time considering the wearability of the product before the eccentricity. It’s all about the wearability. One of my biggest thoughts to myself, I just don’t wanna look at a product and ever see it as landfill. And there’s a lot of product I see and think, “That’s gonna be landfill in a year or two.” Those are some of the thoughts I use to kind of assess, can something live across a generation? Is it meeting the intention that we came into the partnership with? How does it meet day-to-day wearability and functionality? There’s no time to waste on making products which don’t hit the objective.

Someone else who always took a very innovative approach to footwear design was Virgil Abloh. You both were close and he was a mentor to you. Did you guys ever exchange ideas specifically on footwear design?

All the time. We spoke about everything. I remember the first pair of footwear we worked on really early on was Golden Goose x Off-White, which would’ve been 2011, 2012. We were working on that before Umbro, before Nike, before Timberland, that was one of the very first pieces. There was no space that could not be solicited when it came to design. We always looked at it through being fans of sneaker culture, but we always looked at it agnostically as industrial design and product design. It was never about trying to make a perfect sneaker. It was always about pushing to a point where the level of intervention felt balanced. Typically, and this is how I work now with my team, we only stop when the time is up. We don’t stop and then put something aside and leave it for a quarter of a year. No. Stop when the time is up.

From working closely with him, what would you say was that biggest takeaway or lesson that you learned from him that you apply still to your designs and your work?

When I think about our characters, my character can be quite harsh and rough at times. He was an exceptional optimist and what he brought into the process was the ability to dream freely and openly versus seeing critiques and roadblocks. I think that is something that was specific to Virgil. He was an incredible designer, but it was the perspective he had applied to the field which was very unique. Typically, designers wear all black. He broke a lot of those rules, in a good way, just through his personal philosophy and view. He was able to think about the moment he wants that end user to have when they open up the box or receive the box. He was able to take that thought of what they wish to feel and put that into a visual system across product.

We saw the Grammys refer to him as a “hip-hop fashion designer.” Obviously, he was much more than that. Firstly, do you happen to have any thoughts on that categorization? Two, how will you personally remember the vast contributions he made?

I just saw it and I was like, it’s just incorrect. That’s the only way I can put it. I didn’t get emotional. I was like, it’s just incorrect. 

And how I view him, and it’s so weird talking about him in this type of tense, but he was a genius of a generation. I think that his journey was going to be so vast. His reach was gonna be so vast that we only maybe saw a layer of it. Some of the last conversations we had were always around architecture and space. I will always view him as an engineer and architect who can craft across any discipline. You can’t categorize his skill set to an industry or to a discipline. It’s more so a way of thinking and problem solving, which is why he could apply it to a chair, or a building, or store, or sneaker, or a hat, or a car. There’s a few of us now, we always cast ourselves as designers and artists before any particular discipline. I don’t think any of us would just say, “Hey, I’m a fashion designer.” I mean, if you go back to one of his first interviews when he went to Louis Vuitton, “I’m not a fashion designer,” was like the first thing he said to the interviewer. And it’s like this prospect of we are: designers and engineers and industrial designers and artists. Tremaine Emory, another good friend of mine, calls himself an “artist merchant” because he is one. He’s an artist first. He just picks different mediums. And I think that’s how we all prefer to be classified.

What excites you personally about what’s happening right now in the fashion world?

I’m excited by the return of subculture and clothing being used as a medium for that by the next generation coming up. I’ve always been excited about the power, impact, and reach footwear can have. It’s just incredible. I’m really obsessed with it, always will be obsessed with it. There’s always a story to be told there based around craft and innovation and technology. It’s so romantic, which is why we all love footwear. And beyond that, I’m interested in luxury sportswear. I’m interested in speaking deeply to my people, you get me? And it’s not a race thing. It’s a cultural thing. I have no fucking interest being in a conversation which does not feel organic at this point in my career. That’s the way I feel. There are loads of different fields in which I feel comfortable, but fashion with a capital F isn’t number one. Sportswear, luxury sportswear, industrial design, utilitarian design. I feel comfortable in those rooms and spaces and conversations. They really excite me.

A-Cold-Wall* began in 2015. In your mind, how have you personally evolved since then? And what are your goals moving forward?

How I’ve grown, I mean loads of things have happened. I’m not going to read everything off, but I’ve become more of an industrial designer I’d say more so than like, the expected path of going into just fashion design. I actually prefer sitting in those two other camps to a degree and then dipping in and out of fashion by way of experts and teams.

I think my goals for the brand moving forward are to continue to open physical doors. We opened two in South Korea last month, shop-in-shop stores. We have a number of doors that we’re planning to open for end of year, as long as there aren’t too many global closures again. There are some really exciting moments happening in terms of collaboration, but really retail is like the next layer for me that I’m really excited about. We focus so much on pop-ups, and installations, and runway installations in the earlier days. Now, coming out of COVID, there’s a huge opportunity to bring that level of experience and closeness to product, which you can’t get through a screen, into global cities around the world.

Also ready to wear. I think my journey has changed because I started off using fashion as a medium to show sculpture and art. Between 2015 and 2022, I literally became an artist and then scaled a fashion label, moved out of fashion, and moved into this luxury sportswear space. So now what really interests me in clothing is exceptional ready to wear that can be integrated into the wardrobe. I know that sounds kind of simplistic, but I started off with shapes and forms, welding plastic and nylon, and carving garments into cement. So to go from that to just focusing on ready to wear, which allows someone to feel a certain way on their 24 hour cycle, is my main focus right now.