Where would an in-the-know crowd, suited in this season’s most coveted collabs, find a “third space” that caters to their distinct tastes, niche interests, and desire to feel even more tapped in than they already are? Well, for the style set in Chicago, it was at a string of UGG x NOTRE activations over the weekend where art, creativity and community came alive, side by side.
Nestled in the city’s West Loop neighborhood, NOTRE’s brick-and-mortar became the backdrop for a multi-medium art exhibition and accompanying programming that fed more than the chronically online’s Instagram feeds; it served up experiences worth savoring beyond their screens. Conversations flowed, inspiration struck, creative sparks flew, and Falling Backwards: An Artist Exhibition by UGG & NOTRE was at the root of it all.
Five artists, five bespoke works, and four days to celebrate the creativity that keeps the city on the map. From September 24-27, UGG and NOTRE made the most of their F26 partnership by bringing together fresh and familiar faces of Chicago’s art scene to interpret the Southern California-based global lifestyle brand through their own creative lens. Spanning the spectrum of artistic practices, the exhibition made a case for eclectic creative expressions, from charcoal and ceramics to textiles, photography and mixed media, with individuality and self-expression as the common thread.
On Thursday, September 24, Chicago’s plugged-in insiders were all eyes and ears for the kick-off to UGG x NOTRE’s weekend takeover. Mics in hand, questions queued up and answers at the ready, NOTRE TALK, the retailer’s signature interview series, had the room buzzing with UGG brand’s Senior Director of Design, Pierce Lopatic at the helm. Lobbing prompts and quips at the who’s who of the city’s creativity community—photographer Paul Octavious, interdisciplinary artist Alyvia Luong, textile artist Nick D’Alessandro, ceramicist David Kim and artist Angelo Dolojan—Lopatic let them speak to their personal practices and artistic perspectives at the heart of the-three day exhibition.
Guests heard untold stories of the artists’ creative worlds, from D’Alessandro’s collaborative costuming work with A-listers and Kim’s independent pottery production studio, DTK Ceramics, to Luong’s protest-driven practice, Dolojan’s intimate interpretation of lived experiences and Octavious’ playful visual language.
"[I used] deconstructed UGGs that are either from friends or strangers from the internet," D'Alessandro on reimagining the brand’s UGG Classic Boots. "They [were] taken apart, sewn back together and then configured into these seven panels and each of these seven panels is screen printed with dye and rock salt.”
While the Q&A was the main attraction of the night, allowing guests to connect with their community’s cultural voices, they also had the chance to channel their own creative prowess by putting their spin on poster prints at the event’s screen-printing station, using base colors from the UGG Season color guide. It was an evening of dialogue and discovery at the high-end streetwear store, co-founded by Matthew Jaworowski, that continued with a private UGG x NOTRE F&F event, where the applause for the locals shaping Chicago’s art scene was just as loud as the music.
With the UGG x NOTRE lineup from the weekend, the artists put a fresh coat of creativity on the city and brought to life the beliefs that UGG itself holds near and dear. It’s more than a year-round footwear fixture, UGG speaks to sentiments that all artists can relate to—comfort as a catalyst for confidence and how that same sense of confidence can fuel self-expression. The brand’s fall campaign, UGG Season, only reinforces that, celebrating the exact types of creatives the UGG® x NOTRE exhibition is built around and extending beyond art to the tastemakers driving music, fashion and culture all through autumn.
From Friday, September 25 through Sunday, 27, Falling Backwards: An Artist Exhibition by UGG & NOTRE became a canvas for Chicago’s cultural pulse, brought to life through the works of Angelo Dolojan, Paul Octavious, Alyvia Luong, Nick D’Alessandro and David Kim—a pulse that won’t ever stop beating as long as UGG and NOTRE have something to do with it (and, trust us, they do).
