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Bristol Studio, Los Angeles based concept brand, stands among the most exciting new outfits in the merging worlds of streetwear and high fashion. Exploring, and equally defining, the intersection between sport and art, they recently partnered with The Shoe Surgeon and adidas Originals for a new footwear collection in conjunction with their New York Fashion Week: Men’s presentation.
“We’ve always been a fan of each other’s work but didn’t know how to collaborate,” Luke Tadashi, co-founder of Bristol said in a statement. “I very much view what the The Sneaker Surgeon does as “art” just as much as it is product. A lot of what we do at Bristol Studio is try to blur the lines between art and sports. A question at the core of Bristol is, can basketball or other sports be considered an art form? We believe it can and we believe a sports product can be designed in such a way that it’s elevated to “art.””
A full ready-to-wear collection featuring sportswear staples that include sweats, tracksuits and basketball shorts, are all reimagined with Bristol’s sport-focused, artful aesthetic at its center. The footwear collection, helmed by adidas’ BYW, evokes a sculptural approach to sneaker design emphasized through 3D proportions and a three-dimensional texture.
“We spoke with The Shoe Surgeon in great detail about this concept and decided to approach the sneaker from almost an architectural/sculptural perspective. By this I mean, we chose to embrace the 3 dimensional aspect of sneakers. As you’ll ultimately see in the final product, each version has seams that actually come off the shoe, referencing this 3-D concept. Additionally the quarter on each sneaker was crafted from an unconventional material (something you’d see in industrial design or sculpture). One is done up in a plastic, the other in aluminum, and the last in plaster. The quarter is manipulated in a way to give the materials volume and they actually have a 3-D affect as well.”
Tadashi allows his sports background to run wild, keeping pace with his steadfast mind for, and placement of, artistic expression. It’s a forceful nudge that joins sport and art in matrimony, a concept in which Bristol was born and continues to thrive.
The collection, produced solely for the fashion week presentation and not the masses, elongates a narrative many are eager to see Bristol tell. This is just a start.
