Buckle Up: Needles’ Rugged Wallabee Comes With Its Own Belt
No laces needed for Needles’ latest collaboration with Clarks, the Japanese label is bringing back a belted rendition of the English shoemaker’s Wallabee model.
The Clarks Wallabee Monk, originally released in the '70s, is a strap-up version of the moccasin-inspired shoe. It’s an elusive, hard-to-find style of Clarks, despite it having made the occasional re-release in recent years.
Needles is the latest brand to dust off this belted shoe model and bring it back to shop floors (with some Needles-designed alterations, of course).
Available in three different heights — low-top, mid-top, or double-strapped high-top — the collaborative Clarks shoes have Needles’ butterfly logo debossed on the heel and hanging from the buckle as a suede charm.
Plus, also added to the shoe’s strap is a warped silver peace symbol (another piece of signature Needles iconography).
These certainly aren’t your strap-up Clarks from the ‘70s. And further illustrating that point is the outdoorsy thick-tread outsole created by Vibram (which you might recognize from Clarks’ upcoming collaboration with Korean technical-wear label Post Archive Faction).
All three shoes will be launched on April 5, so you'll have to sit tight before being able to strap into a new pair of Needles x Clarks Wallabees.
