You might never have owned a pair of Buffalo London’s platform sneaker-boot hybrids. But if you picked up a music, fashion, or youth culture magazine in the 1990s you will remember the ads: monumental Buffalos front and center, black-lit club-kitted models crouched behind. The ads were channeling the scene where the boots first blew up – the rave and techno explosion in mid-1990s Frankfurt – but it was the Spice Girls that marched Buffalo’s platforms into the mainstream, towering 10cm off the ground. These were shoes that make the still-trending chunky “dad” sneakers of the last few seasons look svelte. Shitkickers as good for the club as for the Y2K apocalypse.
When Buffalo London relaunched a line of unaltered classics a couple years ago, a new generation embraced the rave-era treads. This time their popularity is about more than goths or girl bands: they represent the excitement of the underground and the creative potential of the hybrid. (One continuity: who doesn’t want to look taller?)
So how do you elevate the world’s loftiest sneaker? Buffalo London by 032c takes the material route, combining 6cm of Buffalo’s signature industrial-grade sole with luxury leather uppers that nod to the equestrian-inspired boots of Europe’s heritage brands. True to 032c Ready-to-Wear’s fusional ethos, where experimental clubwear meets high-end womenswear, Buffalo London by 032c’s Jodphurankleboots and Over The Knee thigh-highs look great at the rave – and at the end of the world – but also at the cocktail party, the conference, the studio. (You’ll certainly see them around the 032c Workshop, which combines most of the above.)
For the campaign, 032c fashion director Marc Goehring tapped our sales director Nunguja Kislaya and photographer Vitali Gelwich for a studio shoot in Berlin. The resulting visuals channel the up-close energy of the original Buffalo London print ads, and update the look with clothing from the latest 032c Ready-to-Wear collection.
Buffalo London by 032c styles were teased on the runway during the first 032c Ready-to-Wear fashion show, which took place at 180 The Strand in London in late 2018. Today, they launch globally, after an event in London last night at Brown’s East.
At their store on Alte Schönhauserstrasse in Berlin, Japanese footwear mainstays Onitsuka Tiger held a Japan-themed mini festival to herald the arrival of the OK Basketball MT and the OK Basketball Lo: two new shoes inspired by the groundbreaking design that ignited the Onitsuka Tiger brand almost 70 years ago.More
Omar Epps is a 21st century Renaissance Man. After an early life rapping as part of hip hop crew Wolfpack in Brooklyn, New York, the young Epps followed his talent into acting alongside Tupac Shakur in Harlem drama "Juice." Now a father of three who recently published his first book, "From Fatherless to Fatherhood," versatile Epps was tapped by basketball and streetwear retailer KICKZ, who have partnered with Champion for a limited capsule collection, Never Not Ballin', on the occasion of their 25th anniversary.More
And in the LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS, Christian Lorenzen on how the Internet of the 90s shaped Edward Snowden: “Connections were slow, internet users pseudonymous, and the rooms where they chatted self-regulating and unmonitored. It was a zone of freedom and forgiveness where identities could be picked up and discarded without consequence.”
HE HAD JUST BEEN APPOINTED ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF BALENCIAGA, A ROLE HE FULFILLED WHILE ALSO LEADING VETEMENTS, A LABEL HE DESCRIBED AS A COLLECTIVE, “A SMALL UNITED NATIONS” WITH “STRONG BELIEFS ABOUT THE INDUSTRY.”
READ MORE FROM GVASALIA ON VETEMENTS, BALENCIAGA, AND THE SYSTEM HERE.
The theme of this year’s Vienna Gallery Festival is CIRCULATION. At CRONE VIENNA, 032c Editor-in-Chief Joerg Koch curates THE BIG FLAT NOW, an exhibition featuring Sterling Ruby, Thomas Lohr, Jonathan Castro, Rosemarie Trockel, Eli Russell Linnetz, and Mike Meiré.
“I am optimistic about the futures of some of the very youngest designers precisely because they are palpably pessimistic about the future at large.”
TROY PATTERSON on New York Fashion Week, covering “clothes designed for Doomsday, with survivalist vibes and Mad Max leisurewear,” Thom Browne’s Hitchcockian “uniforms for a conformist dystopia,” and a 71-person vocal ensemble called the Pyer Moss Tabernacle Drip Choir Drenched in the Blood.
Last week in London we launched our first ready-to-wear collection at Browns East, including a BUFFALO LONDON BY 032c collaboration. Little Simz, Danny Lomas, and Sophia Hadjipanteli joined 032c apparel creative director Maria Koch, fashion director Marc Goehring, and sales director Nunguja Kisalya for pizza, drinks, and dancing. See our snaps below.More
Half a century before the latest protests at the Whitney Museum of Art, Faith Ringgold was there, in front of the museum alongside other activists demanding equitable representation of women and black artists in the institution’s exhibitions. As a painter she was influenced, as the European modernists she studied in college were, by the masks she saw while traveling in Africa in the 1970s. But she would never wear a mask herself. More
Misshapen noses, frozen expressions and close-up shots of faded pink glitter create a grotesque ambiguity between animate and inanimate - as seen in this photoshoot conceived by Sasha Chaika, documenting Saint Petersburg’s bizarre Puppet Museum.More
Apparently, a SpaceX Internet satellite almost hit a European spacecraft on Monday.
🛰🚀
“As companies and government agencies launch more spacecraft, concerns are growing about the likelihood of a ‘Kessler syndrome’ event: a cascading series of orbital collisions that may curtail human access to space for hundreds of years,” reports Business Insider.
“Scarcity is a fascinating phenomenon because it flies in the face of traditional economics and its supply-and-demand paradigm. And while scarcity has traditionally been the provenance of luxury, clever streetwear brands like Supreme and Palace have figured out that it can work at any price point. If you add scarcity to an already-hyped product, its desirability goes through the roof, and so does your reputation for being the coolest brand around. And if you keep the prices low enough to make it affordable in theory, you don’t alienate people.” Read more on Highsnobiety 👜💅
"Social media and society have something to do with the public square and having conversations and shared spaces. This project is a bit more running out into that space and shouting something out then running away. It's definitely a public statement, but there's no conversation really." Richard Turley and Lucas Mascatello on the possibility of intimacy in the New York-themed broadsheet CIVILIZATION. More
