Inside Dr. Martens and Slam Jam’s First Collaboration
For their first collaboration, Dr. Martens and cult streetwear retailer Slam Jam explored the intersection between functional workwear and its adoption by electronic music subcultures.
The two parties teamed up to rework the British shoemaker’s 1461 leather style with influences from construction workers’ uniforms, such as custom molded vamps and sidewalls nodding to protective footwear as well as reflective detailing winking to high-vis jackets. Sidewall eyelets, screw-off aglets, a black-on-black heel loop and Dr. Martens’ trademark yellow stitching complete the style, which is also embossed with Slam Jam’s (Un)corporate Uniforms branding.
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Launched in 2020, (Un)corporate Uniforms is Slam Jam’s private label project, which is centered on the concept of uniforms as a means to show one belongs to a precise cultural movement. Appearing on the 1461 shoe tongue and packaging, the brand’s logo is an upside-down capital “A” inscribed in a dashed circle.
Priced at 199 euros, the Dr. Martens x Slam Jam style drops Thursday on both parties’ e-commerce as well as Slam Jam’s physical stores.
Started from a garage in Ferrara, Italy, in 1989, Slam Jam was on the scene before streetwear became mainstream. Considered one of the gurus of streetwear, its founder Luca Benini played a pivotal role in the industry by establishing the first Italian company to distribute cool American streetwear brands in the country, having catapulted the likes of Stussy and Alpha Industries to Italian and European fame, and overall setting a sense of all-are-welcome style by blending music, art and clubbing.
Slam Jam joins a rooster of designers and artists Dr. Martens has conscripted to reinterpret the footwear first made in the 1960s for postal workers and police officers. Collaborations in recent years have included A-Cold-Wall, Yohji Yamamoto, Raf Simons, Supreme, Undercover and Marc Jacobs. As reported, last week the first installment of the Dr. Martens x Rick Owens collaboration also dropped.
