Vuori x Clae is a collaboration built on comfort, quality and timeless silhouettes handcrafted using mostly recycled materials. The Malone Lite shoe features 100% vegan materials, including a premium microsuede upper combined with 100% recycled mesh and liner.
Source: Malone Lite Vuori | Off White
CLAE has long been a sneaker company with an excellent product mix but they’ve flown under the radar. In the 2000s the brand transitioned from a skate focused company to the first brand to actively utilize the term athleisure. They had models I wore in the classroom as an educator because they captured the comfortable, casual, professional sneaker trend in a well-designed package. The company has never crossed over into mainstream, but 20 years later they are still in the business of creating beautifully crafted sneakers.
I’ve included the brand on lists for alternative options for Air Force 1s and I’ve written consistently about the Malone and various collabs done with other brands. CLAE is distinctively Cali. Vuori, the unicorn valuated athletic apparel brand looking to rival Lulu is also a Cali-based brand. Their 400-million-dollar investment established how valuable investors found the brand. With a focus very similar to other California based brands like Outerknown and Mika Jaymes, both much smaller companies focused on making sustainable designs built around the athletic, surf and lifestyle of beach cities, Vuori and CLAE have an understandable alignment.
What makes this an interesting partnership? On the link at the lead of this post is the Vuori landing page for the CLAE x Vuori sneakers. The Vuori site garners a whopping 2 million plus visitors a month. The collection shows up as sold out on all three colors of the collab. On the CLAE site the model shows up with very few broken sizes. CLAE however is a lot like arch. The traffic is under 100,000 visits a month. I’m always intrigued by brand collaborations because there are always confusing strategies in place. The CLAE Malone remains one of my favorite alternatives to the Air Force 1 because of its logo-less, more elevated appearance, but I always wonder why there is a disconnect in the relationship between partners. There isn’t any insight available into why one partner isn’t listing and sharing the kicks, but it’s intriguing to see in real time. What do you think of this collab? Did you know about the partnership?