Eight forward-looking designers from Berlin to Bergen, Seoul to SoCal recently got inspired to look back and visually re-interpret the history of K-Swiss’ flagship shoe, the Classic – itself a timeless design that has endured since its introduction in 1966 at Wimbledon. In some ways, the K-Swiss Classic is the perfect shoe to project different design points of view onto: its pure white lines are a minimal masterpiece, a tabula rasa with which to project a fresh sensibility.

The initiative, entitled “You Gotta Know Your Classics” finds these cutting-edge international designers working on another classic form: the poster. The K-Swiss Classic was one of the first sneakers to go from high performance on the court to street style; how better, then, to bring it back to its roots than a poster that will be seen on boulevards spanning tastemaker style centers like Berlin, London, Los Angeles, Manchester, Paris, and Tokyo?

Over the course of eight posters, the history and significance of the K-Swiss Classic is depicted. Did you know that the Classic jumpstarted the tradition of the white leather sneaker ? You do now. The quiet iconoclasm of this achievement gets a volume boost over the course of each poster, starting with the brand’s birth in a suburban Los Angeles garage by two actual Swiss tennis fans. The endless sunshine of California (the iconic “K” actually stands for “Kalifornia”) provided the ultimate research & development hub, the year round tennis courts untainted by ice and snow proving an ideal hothouse laboratory to perfect the product. There the enhanced performance of the leather sneaker, first introduced for soccer/football, quickly made canvas obsolete (hence ‘We Killed Canvas. Sorry’) as a real contender for tennis shoes intended for real athletic use. But the Swiss-inspired modernism of the shoe made it explode as a style accessory, its comfort enhancing its status as a leisure object.

The K-Swiss Classic has endured for over four decades in its original design; it has proven so enduring, this design initiative proves the perfect choice to shake it up a little. From Jimmy Connors to Helmut Newton to today’s skateboarders and designer/artists like Shinichiro Arakawa and Julia Hederus, it’s been the stealth choice for performance and style, the personality of the wearer filling it and making each unique. These limited edition posters express that individual spirit the Classic has provided for those trendsetters: here at KSPACE, we will be profiling the designers from this campaign over the coming weeks, revealing insights into their inspiration of what’s sure to be a new crop of design innovation ready now to last for future generations to come.

Designers:
Non-Format / Minneapolis & Oslo
Life of the mind / Los Angeles
Bureau / Berlin
Lemon Scented Tea / Amsterdam
Sulki Choi and Sung Min Choi / Seoul
Value and Service / London
Grandpeople / Bergen
Cobbenhagen & Hendriksen / Amsterdam