LONDON — Martine Rose is British shoe manufacturer Clarks’ first guest creative director.

“Clarks is something that’s so intrinsic to British culture and clearly Jamaican culture since it’s huge in Jamaica due to Commonwealth. There’s a few British brands which are really big in Jamaica because Britishness is an indication of quality and you’re taking it out of context it takes on a lifetime of its own, like a myth,” Rose told WWD in an interview, sitting in her north London studio as she readies her upcoming men’s show in June, where her designs for Clarks will debut on the runway and on sale from March 2024.

As a community-focused designer, the choice to team with Clarks was an easy “yes” due to company’s history dating back 200 years, when the local Quaker community stepped in to financially help bail out the founders, Cyrus and James Clark, which resulted within the opening of a recent school, theater, library, open-air swimming pool and city hall in Somerset.

Clarks approached Rose last yr and she or he launched into a visit to its headquarters in Somerset to learn more in regards to the company’s history and to witness the making of Clarks shoes, which in British households are a rite of passage for when children get their feet sized for the primary time and buy their first pair of shoes for college.

Rose has designed three pairs of shoes. She’s taken signature Clarks styles equivalent to the loafer, Oxford shoe and sandal to reinterpret it in her own colourful way with a significant give attention to comfort.

“I used to be really struck that they work so hard for comfort. They said when the buyers are available, one among the primary things they do is twist the shoe around and squidge it,” she said, contrasting it together with her own label, where design is primary and luxury is secondary.

The thought of comfort stuck with Rose and she or he desired to take it to the following level by creating shoes that appear and feel like pillows by adding extra padding to the insoles and using feather downs in shoes, which the Clarks company hadn’t ever worked on before.

She used the identical measures she takes together with her own collections when selecting the colorways for the shoes.

“There must be something familiar about it so you possibly can get the riff. We’ve actually tried to maintain it more classic, so it’s quite simple, there’s a black, oxblood and snakeskin,” said Rose, who had previously sampled “crazy colours” before making her decision.

Her design philosophy has all the time been about creating small stories inside her collections somewhat than zooming in on one overarching theme. 

There are elements of street, sport and tailoring across all of the separates in her collections and so when she designed the shoes for Clarks and knew she was going to inaugurate them at her show, there was no pressure to follow a tough motif.

“Martine was top of our list of guest creative directors to partner with, as a consequence of her unconventional approach to design and development and her British-Jamaican background, each of that are core to our brand,” said Tara McRae, chief marketing and digital officer at Clarks.

Rose hinted at one other collaboration that’s within the works due for the summer.

Earlier this yr she made her debut as special guest designer at Pitti Uomo. The show was significant because it was her first outside the U.K.

“It’s hard to disregard the platform and the prestige of Pitti and I’m so honored to have been asked. I definitely feel I’m more on a world stage and I don’t have the safety blanket of showing in London and knowing town,” Rose said in an interview, who founded her brand in 2007 with a group of shirts.

“I’m nervous, in fact, breaking out and showing in one other city for the primary time, but those feelings are productive and obligatory for growth in a private sense — and in a business one, too,” she added.

Although she’s accustomed to showing in London, Rose has worked on quite a lot of capsules and special projects for brands including Nike, Napapijri and Tommy Hilfiger. For 3 years, she shuttled forwards and backwards to Paris, working with Demna on Balenciaga menswear.

She suggested that her upcoming show shall be held in north London and it is going to be larger than ones she’s hosted before in town.