The New Era of YMC Starts at the Feet (EXCLUSIVE)
YMC, the British label founded as You Must Create 30 years ago this year, is metamorphizing. Under the direction of its new creative director, brilliant young designer Sage Toda-Nation, YMC is evolving to meet the current day. And its new era begins with the feet.
The new Grenson shoes handmade for YMC's Spring/Summer 2025 collection, its first by Toda-Nation, are reflective of this refreshed approach. But also much more.
"YMC’s history has very much dovetailed with ours," Tim Little, Grenson CEO and creative director, tells Highsnobiety.
Grenson and YMC first partnered for Fall/Winter 2024, creating a pull-on boot that was devised "over a glass of wine one night." It was an organic union fostered by a longtime friendship, expressed in a singular shape reflecting shared notions of classic British stylishness.
For Toda-Nation's YMC Spring/Summer 2025 collection, that vision has evolved.
The heritage at the core of both YMC and Grenson remains intact — as always, the shoes are handmade at Grenson's Northamptonshire factory — but the collaborative shoe is neither modern nor retro. Like Toda-Nation's eponymous clothing line, it defies obvious generalities.
Here, Grenson and YMC have created a slip on-style leather shoe that looks like a relic of some future civilization, perhaps part of some long-off worker's uniform, though it's actually inspired by a lace-free YMC sneaker from the '90s.
With its snub toe and crisp vamp, two narrow flaps obscuring the laces within, the ensuing shape all bullet-train lines. Available February 13 from Grenson's website and YMC's web store, the collaborative Grenson shoe is a kind of tangible conduit between Toda-Nation's innovations and YMC legacy, dovetailing his warped seams and generous cuts with the uncomplicated wearability innate to YMC.
"The shoes could easily be from either brand — the fact they are from both is a bonus," Little says. "This is where a collaboration works, as it has real substance and comes from the DNA of both brands."
"This design stems from a hybrid of a sneaker and a derby, merging the worlds between Grenson and YMC in a playful way whilst still honoring the classics," YMC co-founder and CEO Jimmy Collins continues. "At YMC, we only collaborate with other brands we really love, it's never for cache or hype."
