For a third and final installment of the Renew Knit pack, and personally my favorite—the pack was brought forward into Holiday. A new model was added into the assortment which had been in pre development with the purpose of Introducing seasonal warmth and new aesthetics. This was a challenge, adding in new structures as this process - especially in the area of terry can add significant time per unit, and therefore cost to the engineered upper. This required several rounds of iterations to perfect, and was really inspired by experimentations I had done elsewhere utilizing engineered terry placed graphics via a woven technique. The patches were also adjusted to nod to durability and weatherization while color would be the final driver to bring home the seasonal aesthetic. This work is a further development of the work found here and here, and merged with the CT70 Knit to create a cohesive pack
I created a pitch to drive the aesthetic of the new upper for the crater chuck as the business was calling for a total revision in this area in the truly explorative side of things in search of our pinnacle consumer.
An idea began to emerge for me based on the sustainability-forward basis for the pack, and the visual concept of fitting organic patterns and forms into this low resolution technology (flatbed knitting) or vice vera. This conjured ideas or the rigidity of the creation of man merging with the organic flowing forms of nature.
This paired with looking for inspiration indoors during lockdown forced me to look in detail at the things I kept around my home. Luckily I had just over 80 plants which I meticulously maintained and knew well. To drive my organic form inspiration I looked to the unfurling of my new white bird of paradise leaf. Once ready, in anywhere from a few days to a month the hydraulic pressure within the leaf will cause it to unravel from it’s original spear-like growth out of the center of the plant. This process leaves interesting patterns on the new leaf as it matures, as well as created an interesting visual in my mind when overlayed. This combination lead to the pattern development along with the structure choice and placement shown below.
Using the rare extra time and pre-planning I was able to prototype over an entire season prior to iterate and refine the design overtime while also presenting and receiving feedback to all partners over multiple prototype rounds. The design team pushed for a lace-less design, while the product and marketing side wanted a lace as a safe option. We compromised by making the shoe wearable either way, but ultimately it came with a lace.
Simultaneously I had been experimenting with various methods of producing terry to validate different parameters such as pile height, density, color, and engineered placement/graphic execution. This was a larger part of the utilization of terry in the final Crater Chuck model.
