EXCLUSIVE: DJ Honey Dijon and Scholl Team Up for ‘From the Beach to the Club’ Collab
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DJ Honey Dijon is sweetening up Scholl, creating a new capsule collection for the iconic wooden-soled slides.
The first drop of the two-part collaboration under her Honey F–king Dijon fashion label, the capsule features a sleeker, sexier take on the clog. It’s designed to go “from the beach to the club,” Dijon told WWD. The collection is an all-black colorway with supersized silver hardware and, for the heeled version, a more shapely silhouette.
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“The shoe is very personal, actually, and when I saw that they were reintroducing the brand it immediately reminded me of my mom and my childhood. I had this emotional connection to it,” Dijon told WWD. The Chicago native has an affinity for the hometown brand, and this drop was inspired by the industrial aesthetic of her adopted home of Berlin.
The brand opened up the archives at its Milan headquarters to the delight of Dijon, who calls herself a “research queen.” There was a treasure trove of information and images that speak to everything from disco and club culture, to sustainability, to the health and wellness trends of today, not to mention the political similarities of the times. “There are a lot of correlations that are happening now that reflect what happened in the ’70s, so it’s really quite timely.”
“There’s all this conversation now in culture about gender nonconforming people and nonbinary and clothing is for everyone. And I thought it was a really great way for me to reintroduce this iconic shoe to a new generation of kids. It’s such an iconic American shoe that has really stood the test of time, and I thought it would be great to elevate it into the fashion conversation. There’s so much cross-pollination between what is happening now.”
While she’s reticent to utter the word “comfort” for all the dowdy connotations of Scholl’s orthopedic origins, she added: “We all have very active lifestyles now and the shoe fits right into that. And as someone that stands for hours and hours and hours, having a really great, fashionable shoe that’s also good for me is like perfection.”
It’s also a style lifesaver for the busy DJ who can be in four cities in a week for gigs. “I can go from the beach to the airport to the club, because a lot of times I don’t even have time to change. And you don’t even have to take it off when you go through TSA,” joked Dijon.
“The marketplace is so overcrowded, so it has to have something to contribute to people’s lives,” she added.
Courtesy Scholl
It’s part of a broader revamp of the iconic shoe that had its heyday back in the ’70s and has been a celeb favorite from Audrey Hepburn to Sarah Jessica Parker. “[The goal is] to develop the brand and really to manifest the positioning as a leader in the segment. Clearly playing the fashion game is one big part and one big pillar of that strategy, and that also means to elevate and to reignite collections,” Scholl Shoes chief executive officer Tobias Klaiber told WWD.
The growth plan strategy is twofold with more celeb and brand collaborations to come. Is there anything like the Birkenstock and Dior deal in the works? “We clearly do not want to replicate or do something exactly the same,” he said, noting they are working with “more democratic” brands. A collaboration with Danish cult fave Ganni was launched earlier this year.
“We really want to select partners who can be bold and brave with us, where we can be more creative and really embrace the spirit of the brand, questioning the status quo and reinventing ourselves as well.”
Without giving specific numbers, Klaiber said business has doubled in the last year through fashion outlets such as Paris’ Le Bon Marché and Berlin’s KaDeWe and they are growing in Asia, specifically China, Japan and Korea.
“In the fashion space there are a lot of things already planned to come and there are also other initiatives we will be driving,” he said. There are three additional collaborations in the pipeline for 2023, but Klaiber insists it’s not a numbers game. “We are searching for long-term partners. We have a more strategic view on brand development, but also [collaborations] that really help us in being more bold, more brave and experimenting and being creative.”
The capsule will be released in October and available on Dover Street Market, plus additional doors. It comes in an inclusive size range from 35 to 46.
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