The nonnative x Converse Chuck Taylor All Star doesn’t look like a GORE-TEX sneaker. But then again, what does a GORE-TEX sneaker even look like these days?

nonnative has made ample contributions to the booming GORE-TEX shoe niche, including sporty ASICS sneakers, rugged Timberland boots, and preppy suede boat shoes. It’s even collaborated with Japanese shoemaker Spingle Move on a low-top GORE-TEX canvas sneaker that looked suspiciously like a Converse Chuck Taylor, though this new collaboration is the real thing. 

nonnative’s newest Converse is the quintessential Converse. In fact, it might be the quintessential sneaker. It’s a shoe everyone’s seen a thousand times, except never quite like this.

Fully watertight footwear was once a category filled exclusively with hi-tech hiking shoes and the odd limited-edition sneaker. Now, it’s become the norm and the options for wrapping your feet in waterproof protection are subsequently endless. Rain-defeating membranes line everything from Clarks Wallabees to wedding-appropriate leather dress shoes to fuzzy UGG boots. And nonnative is as big a fan of water-deflecting footwear as anyone.  

The Chuck Taylor's instantly recognizable form comes in arguably its most instantly recognizable colorway for nonnative’s collaboration: beige canvas with a red stripe running along the top of the foxing and a navy stripe cutting through the white midsole.

In a classic nonnative move, the label offers its Chucks with a detachable zippered placket attached through the shoe’s laces, making this low-cut sneaker more like a boot than a regular ol' sneaker. The zip-up attachment was a feature in nonnative’s first Chuck Taylor collaboration in 2014, but the waterproof GORE-TEX lining is a new feature added for this collaborative release on March 20.

It’s a cool addition to the shoe not because it’s Converse’s first GORE-TEX Chuck Taylor — the American footwear brand has waterproofed its most famous design before, always in tandem with a techy new material or design update — but because it’s the first GORE-TEX Chuck Taylor to look (almost) identical to a basic Chuck Taylor.

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