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
“It’s obvious we need a new internationalism, but it’s not going to be politicians that get us there. We’re publishing the people we think will.”
Earlier this year, 032c contributor SHANE ANDERSON spoke to actor India Ennenga and editor Sebastian Clark, publishers of isolarii. This week isolarii releases STREET COP, a new project by Robert Coover and Art Spiegelman – and Spiegelman’s first in more than a decade. The authors, whose respective oeuvres have long grappled with political mythos, now join forces to address the current state of the American psyche. Illustrated over the course of the pandemic in 2020, this short tale is a visceral response to reality’s dissolution and a reckoning of political disaster – and a proposal for a path to emergent empathy.
Read “Books by ISOLARII: ‘Islands from which to view the world anew'” HERE.
Dior Men and Fendi designer KIM JONES has guest edited the April issue of Vogue Italia. Emanuele Farneti, the magazine’s in-house editor-in-chief, introduces the collaboration with a loose adaptation of the preface of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando – one of Jones’ favorite works of literature. “Many friends have helped us in writing this book,” he begins. Farneti continues:
“Some creative products are the fruit of individual talent. Others are the result of a collective effort. They grow and gain strength thanks to the contributions of people with different sensibilities and experiences. Without any doubt, Vogue Italia belongs to this second group. Every idea, every photo and every page of the magazine is the outcome of constant exchanges between the people who work on this publication. It’s the part of our job that I love the most: helping someone else’s ideas to develop, and seeing how my own ideas are strengthened and take shape when they’re challenged by the various viewpoints of my colleagues. We are a community, and at times like these, heaven knows how central the sense of sharing is to our lives.”
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JONES has shared with 032c before, inviting writer Jack Self and photographer Jackie Nickerson into his London home for our sold-out Issue #37. You can read the interview – and see Jones’ wild collection of art and artifacts, which includes plenty of Woolf paraphernalia – HERE.
