ARCHIBALD LONDON LAUNCHES NEW SNEAKER WITH HELP FROM STYLEFORUM
Archibald London has teamed up with men’s style community StyleForum to launch a member-generated sneaker.
To make this happen, Archibald posed to the more than 188,000 members of StyleForum, the following question: how do you design and produce the best classic Italian sneaker? As a result, the two companies came up with the SF-01, an all gender, hand-cut and handmade Italian leather athletic shoe.
All-in-all the team at Archibald asked 13 questions to the StyleForum community in August 2019 concerning what silhouette, style, fit, colors, soles, and laces made a leather sneaker the best. Over 1,200 answers were compiled into a consensus design and delivered to a family-run shoe manufacturer in the Northern Italian town of Mirandola. The StyleForum page was kept in pace, with real-time forum discussions based on samples and private feedback supplementing the crowdsourcing exercise.
The finished sneaker offers a real response to the long-running debate over what the ultimate in high-end athletic footwear should look like by crowdsourcing responses from users who have experienced the full range of products on the market.
“Who needs another white sneaker, right? It was clear no one quite hit the nail on the head so we decided to go to the source, a group who really know, and develop this with the StyleForum members,” said Rohan Dhir, founder of Archibald. “This isn’t one brand’s or designer’s interpretation of the ultimate classic Italian sneaker, it is the result of more than 1200 style and quality-focused individuals who have owned, tried and tested some of the most celebrated offerings on the market and what their opinions on what worked and didn’t in a fashion athletic shoe. “
The new sneaker, which retails for $215, is now available on Archibald London for pre-order, and will fully launch on February 17th.