NEEDLES Puts Its Butterfly and Its Purple on SOREL’s New Waterproof Ambler

NEEDLES and SOREL have never worked together before. Their first collision lands September 25: a waterproof clog and chukka boot dipped entirely in purple.

SOREL has been making winter boots in Kitchener, Ontario since 1962. NEEDLES has been reworking American workwear out of Tokyo since 1995. The two brands have never collision before now. Their first project together arrives Friday, September 25, built on SOREL’s new Ambler platform in two constructions: the Ambler Waterproof, a slip on clog, and the Ambler Chukka Waterproof, a laced boot. Both come in a single colorway, listed simply as Black/Purple, both carry NEEDLES’ butterfly embossed directly into the nubuck rather than stitched on as it usually is, and both are priced in yen, at ¥25,850 for the clog and ¥30,250 for the chukka. Online sales in Japan are set to open at 11:30am, per a Japan market rel notice, through Nepenthes, the company that has produced NEEDLES since 1995. It is also NEEDLES’ first footwear collide with a North American outdoor heritage brand specifically; its prior shoe work has run through Japanese and design world partners, including a Lux-2 slider collaboration with PPACO earlier this year. The pair gives SOREL’s Ambler platform its most overtly fashion driven treatment yet, and gives NEEDLES a foothold in a category it has rarely touched directly: outdoor and winter footwear.

SOREL x Needles Ambler Waterproof Clog and Chukka Boot in purple and black.

stir

The Ambler is new this fall, but its shape is not. SOREL built its name on the Caribou boot, a rubber shelled, felt lined workboot that Kaufman Rubber Company introduced in Kitchener in 1962. By SOREL’s own account, explorer Ralph Plaisted wore the Caribou on the first confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole overland, a 500 mile, 43 day crossing, and decades later Ann Daniels became the first woman to make the same overland journey wearing SOREL boots. A collaboration with snowboarder Scott Downey later produced the Pro Flex 1, an early purpose built snowboard boot pairing a Caribou upper with a plastic sole, and by 2019 SOREL had carried that same identity onto Manhattan’s streets with a Mile Long Runway show during New York Fashion Week, the moment the brand itself points to as its turn toward fashion. Collaborations with Proenza Schouler and Supreme followed, and, more recently, as WWD reported, pairings with Jane Wade and Barbour. The Ambler itself takes the Caribou’s shell language and compresses it into something built for sidewalks rather than snowfields: a nubuck upper over an EVA midsole and outsole, waterproof enough for a wet commute without a winter boot’s bulk. For this collaboration, the nubuck is joined by a flexible resin trim, something between plastic and rubber, chosen for a lighter step than the original Caribou allows. SOREL, now owned by Columbia Sportswear and based in Portland, Oregon, arrives at this collide during a mixed year for the business: Columbia reported the brand’s second quarter net sales down 14 percent to $16.3 million, which the company attributed mainly to later wholesale shipment timing rather than a falloff in demand. NEEDLES is the newest name on SOREL’s collaborator list, and the first Japanese one.

flow

NEEDLES was launched in 1995 by Keizo Shimizu, the same designer behind Engineered Garments and the founder of Nepenthes, which began as a fashion distribution company in Tokyo’s Aoyama neighborhood in 1988 before opening its first US outposts in Boston the following year and New York in 1996. Nepenthes now produces both labels, along with South2 West8 and several smaller lines. Shimizu built NEEDLES on decades of vintage sourcing trips, folding American military surplus and Ivy tailoring into garments cut and sewn entirely in Japan, and expanded the label in 2010 with REBUILD by NEEDLES, a line built from deconstructed vintage and deadstock pieces rather than new fabric. Its tracksuits and military inspired jackets have drawn wide celebrity support over the years, including from A$AP Rockyand the late Virgil Abloh. NEEDLES’ most recognizable signature, though, is a butterfly, usually embroidered and here embossed instead, that traces back to Steve McQueen’s tattoo in the 1973 film Papillon, and its house color runs so consistently purple that the shade has become shorthand for the label itself. That combination, purple and papillon, is what NEEDLES brought to this collaboration rather than a redesign of the shoe’s shape. The timing tracks with a busy year for the brand, which put its name on a first ever collaboration with Brooks Brothers earlier this month.

Needles D.N. Coverall Shirt Jacket in olive reversed sateen, featuring the sig purple butterfly embroidery.

fin

The Ambler Waterproof and Ambler Chukka Waterproof go on sale September 25 at Nepenthes’ own stores in Tokyo, Osaka and Hakata, and through its online shop for Japan, its New York site for US and Canadian orders, and its London site for UK and EU orders. SOREL’s own site does not yet list NEEDLES among the past collide shown on its union page, suggesting a matching landing page on SOREL’s end may follow once the shoes are live. Sizing runs US4 through US12, with both styles sharing the same Black/Purple colorway and no other options announced. The simultaneous Japan, US and UK availability marks a wider release than several of NEEDLES’ earlier team ups, which have often stayed within Nepenthes’ Japanese stores before expanding, if at all, to its overseas locations.