EXCLUSIVE: Engineered Garments & K-Swiss Evolve the Classics (Literally)
Engineered Garments is quietly better at collabs than almost anyone out there. Labels as large as Palace Skateboards and as niche as footwear brand Tarvas have all been organically folded into Engineered Garments' world without any aesthetic clash.
Next up — and again, a perfect fit for EG — is K-Swiss, the nearly 60-year-old footwear label founded in Los Angeles by a couple tennis-obsessed ex-pats from Switzerland (hence the "Swiss" in K-Swiss).
K-Swiss makes as much sense for an Engineered Garments partnership as anyone, given its the sporty heritage and inherent wearability of its footwear line and Engineered Garments founder Daiki Suzuki's well-documented fascination with time-tested heritage design.
Anyways, heritage is the key word here, as Engineered Garments is tackling the Classic GT sneaker, the oldest K-Swiss shoe still on the market.
The Classic GT it debuted in 1966, the same year that K-Swiss was founded, making it perhaps the best example of a prototypical tennis sneaker. It's appropriately named, to say the least.
The Engineered Garments x K-Swiss Classic GT keeps in line with previous EG sneaker reimaginings: each sneaker is split into smooth grain leather and hairy suede with mismatched aglets to taste, imagined in tonal black, white, and militaristic brown colorways.
Perhaps in the most EG twist, conventional laces are replaced by ropey ties fastened by a pull tab, channeling both the easy-on energy of K-Swiss' tennis heritage and EG's fascination with technical utility, a feature that Suzuki particularly enjoys.
"I became interested in K-Swiss when I saw it for the first time while working at a store in the 80’s in Tokyo that was selling the brand," Daiki Suzuki recalled. "I wanted to maintain the authentic K-Swiss look so I kept everything except the D-ring straps on one side."
"White is always a classic choice but I love the brown leather, suede combo as well, since it reminds me of the K-Swiss model I first came across and came to love."
Engineered Garments is currently in the middle of issuing its very strong Spring/Summer 2023 collection, with an equally impressive Fall/Winter 2023 lineup in the works so it's clearly firing on all cylinders.
As you'd expect, K-Swiss is merely the latest in a long line of footwear-focused Engineered Garments team-ups. Stop me if you've heard this one before but everyone from the big guys, like adidas and New Balance, to less large sportswear labels like Keen and Superga have been graced by the EG touch.
