After Months of Sun Bleaching, Intricately Patterned Clarks Emerge
Creating a pair of JiyongKim x Clarks shoes is a painstakingly slow process.
Korean designer JiyongKim specializes in sun-bleaching, a technique where fabrics are left in nature for months on end. And on his Clarks collaboration, every intricate anomaly in the color of the shoes has been shaped by the sun’s powerful rays, slowly and naturally bleaching pieces of cloth to have a unique patina.
“The sun-bleaching process varies widely and depends on... material, time of year, and chance. That’s the charm of this process: You ultimately leave things up to nature and serendipity," Jiyong Kim, founder of the brand, previously told Highsnobiety. "We hope to [make] people question what can be considered valuable and to examine their own relationship with beauty and consumption."
This patient process, normally found creating detailed patterns on Kim's workwear-inspired jackets or loose-fitting pants, is brought onto footwear in collaboration with Clarks.
First previewed last year at the designer’s Paris showroom, he’s crafted a four-piece collection with the legendary English shoemakers, consisting of its Desert Trek, Wallabee, and Wallabee Cup models.
Two collaborative Wallabee Cup shoes were launched (and swiftly sold out) last year on the designer’s webstore, but the other two models are just now being released, arriving on April 20.
An otherwise simple all-black shoe, the Wallabee comes with light brown hits of bleaching on the medial panels, while the Deserk Trek has an extra piece of textured fringed material added to the upper. By nature of their creation, no two pairs are the same.
That’s the beauty of JiyongKim’s sun bleaching, the LVMH Prize-nominated designer's creations have irregularities only achievable by the slowly crafted and artisan-made.
