Buckle Up: Needles’ Rugged Wallabee Comes With Its Own Belt
No laces needed for Needles’ latest collaboration with Clarks, the Japanese label is bringing back a belted rendition of the English shoemaker’s Wallabee model.
The Clarks Wallabee Monk, originally released in the '70s, is a strap-up version of the moccasin-inspired shoe. It’s an elusive, hard-to-find style of Clarks, despite it having made the occasional re-release in recent years.
Needles is the latest brand to dust off this belted shoe model and bring it back to shop floors (with some Needles-designed alterations, of course).
Available as either a beige-colored mid-top or an all-black low-top, the collaborative Clarks shoes have Needles’ butterfly logo debossed on the heel and hanging from the buckle as a suede charm.
Plus, also added to the shoe’s strap is a warped silver peace symbol (another piece of signature Needles iconography).
These certainly aren’t your strap-up Clarks from the ‘70s. And further illustrating that point is the outdoorsy thick-tread outsole created by Vibram (which you might recognize from Clarks’ upcoming collaboration with Korean technical-wear label Post Archive Faction).
There’s no official release date for these sneakers yet, Needles has only revealed that it is “coming soon”, so you’ll have to sit tight before being able to strap into a new pair of Needles x Clarks Wallabees.
