Workwear Skate Shoes: Carhartt & Converse Combine Perfectly
Skate shoes and workwear need to be tough enough to take a good thrashing so it fits that Carhartt WIP (a brand whose roots are deeply ingrained in workwear) and Converse (one of the world’s leading skateboarding labels) have collaborated on some hard-wearing sneakers. Workwear skate shoes? Why not.
Indeed, Carhartt WIP and Converse have cleverly combined workwear and skatewear to create a duo of sneakers under the Converse CONS footwear umbrella, a line dedicated to skater gear.
The new Carhartt WIP collab takes two of Converse’s most famous models, the One Star and Chuck Taylor — both archival basketball shoes now firmly established as popular skateboard models — and subtly upgrades them with the familiar finesse of previous Carhartt WIP sneaker collaborations (hello, New Balance dad shoe).
Keeping to Carhartt WIP’s signature brown color, both of the shoes layer suede panels on top of each other in a sequence that goes from dark to light brown and ends with off-white-colored suede.
The suede panels are each triple-stitched onto the shoes, to make triple sure they stay in place.
Further details include added foxing height for durability and the skate-appropriate features you’d expect on a Converse Cons PRO shoe (such as lock-in elastic tongue straps, CX foam sockliner cushioning, and a CONS traction rubber outsole).
The release of these workwear-indebted sneakers is slated for June 6 at select retailers including the Highsnobiety Shop.
Sneaker collaborations are one the last things I associate with Carhartt WIP, which is strange considering that it’s behind one of the most hyped sneakers of all time — to be fair, that was mainline Carhartt — and its recent collaborative output with labels like New Balance has proven fruitful.
Plus, Carhartt collabs are nearly always a big deal, even when they're on the smaller scale, because they're so tastefully and approachably handled.
Maybe Carhartt really is the new luxury.
At the very least, its latest collaboration with Converse, a brand with which Carhartt WIP has a long-established partnership, is a reminder of the workwear line's sneaker credentials.
