Their special version of the 10-eyelet 1490 boot costs more than $600, and is currently sold out at Net-a-Porter, Barneys, and Nordstrom. Martens teamed up with Vetements, one of fashion’s coolest labels of the past few years. Martens has also collaborated at times with smaller labels such as Engineered Garments. “But we find that fashion adopts us.”Ĭomme des Garçons has also been a regular partner, and Dr. Martens started working with the Japanese legend Yohji Yamamoto about 13 years ago. ”All of the collaborations we do with Yohji are based on our iconic, original items, which obviously ensures that the brand can remain relevant within fashion without us having to try to be a fashion brand, because we don’t openly want to go and chase fashion,” he explains. Some have come to the brand through the high-profile collaborations it has done over the years with designer labels. (Campbell notes that most of the growing customer base in Asia falls into the “alternative” or “fashion” categories.) Today you can see fashionable young people stomping along in their Docs in the streets of London’s Shoreditch, or Williamsburg in Brooklyn, or Harajuku in Tokyo. Martens’ boots for how they look with a pair of jeans as much as their connotations. How does a brand founded on decades-old designs and niche cultures function as a modern, globally relevant label today?īut they don’t belong to those subcultures themselves. The company’s signature style, the 1460 boot (“1460” refers to April 1, 1960, the day the first pair rolled off the line) is more than 50 years old.
Martens wants to preserve its roots, while staying relevant to shoppers who may know the Clash best as one of the bands on the Stranger Things 2 soundtrack. The wearers of Docs are undeniably changing, which makes for a tricky balancing act for the company. Dr. The boot may still be widely synonymous with subculture, but it has clearly grown well beyond it. Martens’ sales now are in Asia, mostly Japan. Martens has been working hard to reach new customers and new markets, particularly in Asia, where its business is growing fastest: Roughly a quarter of Dr. In recent years in particular, the company has been growing at a rapid clip, with sales roughly quadrupling from their level a decade ago.
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