All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Back in February a host of celebrities flocked to Paris to see Virgil Abloh's final collection for Off-White, the brand he founded in 2013. Seated next to Rihanna and A$AP Rocky was Pharrell Williams, who was sporting his self-designed Tiffany and Co sunnies, as well as a cream trench coat and ivory slacks from Off-White's AW/22 Spaceship Earth collection that was sent down the catwalk that day. On his feet, and unbeknownst to many at the time, were a pair of black brogue Oxfords from a yet-to-be-unveiled collaboration between Abloh and Prada-owned footwear label Church's.
The collaborative project, named “Off-White for Church's” was described by Abloh as a “remastering of a classic”. The partnership was one of the last that the designer had worked on. Abloh passed away in November at the age of 41 following a long battle with cancer. The collection comprises two pairs of shoes, both designed by Abloh, that draw on both Northamptonshire-based Church's and Off-White's signature aesthetics.
So far only one of the Off-White for Church's styles has been unveiled. Abloh took the British shoemaker's elegantly-crafted, brogue Oxford Burwood design, which dates back to 1953, and gave it a contemporary lift. Where the original handmade shoe came with a brown suede upper, the Off-White version comes with a brushed calfskin overlay.
Meanwhile, each shoe comes adorned with the Ablohisms that became associated with the former Louis Vuitton artistic designer of menswear. “Special Events” is screen printed in his favoured Helvetica font along the outer of the formal silhouette, while the laces are similarly decorated with “Shoe Laces”. Elsewhere the brogues come with a leather take on the plastic hang tags you'd recognize from Off-White's sneaker designs.
It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the Church's team permitted Abloh to reinterpret its classic shoes, which long-standing fans of the brand will likely protest need little-to-no improvement.
Abloh made a name for himself reimagining the most iconic sneaker designs in footwear history. In 2017 he introduced “The Ten”, his own take on Nike's most popular silhouettes including the Air Jordan 1 and Zoom Vaporfly. Elsewhere he brought sneakers to the fore of the Louis Vuitton brand, introducing the LV trainer in an array of colors, as well as concocting a Nike and LV collaborative Air Jordan design in 2021.
The Off-White for Church's Burwood brogues are available at off-white.com, church-footwear.com and Church's stores tomorrow, March 24th.
This story originally ran on British GQ with the title “Your first look at the Off-White x Church's collaboration”