Veja x Rick Owens
Collaborating with nonconformist designer and avant-gardist Rick Owens once more across their latest 2021 collection, François-Ghislain Morillion and Sébastien Kopp, the pioneering partnership behind Paris-based Veja welcome a uniform update to their infamous V-Knit Runner Style 2 profile and ongoing Veja Running project.
Host to a harmonious collaborative relationship that began in 2019 with the original Veja x Rick Owens V-Knit Runner collection, Veja remains true to their admiration for progressive styling as they address the transitioning seasons with their focus firmly orientated around environmentally-mindful manufacturing. Translating to ‘look’ in Portugese, Veja is a footwear brand that has continued to commemorate modernised aesthetics with respect to intentional function. A Fair Trade brand that strives to implement transparency, ecological balance and small-solution sustainability across big-time realities, Veja’s open-minded use of organic raw materials is symbolic not only of evolutionary sneaker culture but of the brand’s double-footed stance in both the ecological world and in the realm of high-fashion.
Known for his neo-Gothic, androgynous and abstract yet approachable design style, American-born designer Rick Owens has continued to captivate the fashion industry with his naturally cultivated talent and his individualistic approach toward modern-day necessity. Delineated with the moniker ‘Dark Lord’ due to his unchallenged honouring of dark characteristics across his contemporary streetwear collections, Owens’ ability to offset the status quo has earned him many influential partnerships over the years, including those with Birkenstock, adidas, American heritage brand Hood Rubber and Converse, through his progressive diffusion label DRKSHDW. Playing with proportion, custom and form, Owens has continued to retain his anchorage in the footwear market, with his experimental Geobaskets from AW06, also known as the Dustulator Dunks - named so after the associative collection and the design’s similarity to a certain courtside design, and his cap-toe Ramones effectively inspired by his own admiration for fitness and fundamentally designed for his own use.
After adding running to his personal regiment in 2013 and continuing on from his over-exaggerated geometric collaborations with adidas, Rick Owens paired with Veja in ‘19 with the labels welcoming a number of capsule collections together over the past three years. Re-interpretations of Veja’s Wool Runner, hiking-styled Venturi, lowered Runner 2 and Runner Mid demonstrate both parties’ ability to reap the benefits of boundary-free creativity, with the latest Veja x Rick Owens Runner Style 2 sneaker focusing its attention on sustainably-sourced sporting functionality and unequivocal comfort. Known for his illustrious fabric-experimentation lineage at Lamy and Revillon, Owens’ visionary opposition to normalcy accompanies Veja’s eco-minded manufacturing solution to introduce an all-new construction to the V-Knit Runner 2. Recycled post-consumer plastic bottles are combined to curate the design’s lightweight and ventilated mesh-style construction, whilst Veja’s industry-pioneering Amazonian wild-rubber outsole has been updated to include recycled rice-husk and natural cork bark across its contoured all-terrain design. A latex L-Foam cushioning answers the demands of advanced track-and-field functionality, with the sugar-cane and banana-oil midsole complemented by Pebax RNew and recycled-EVA trims throughout both the full-black and oyster-white minimal, yet radical designs.
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