copyright 2009 Mr Hare. All rights reserved.

 

Spring/Summer 2010

 

Above adventures of the night, come adventures of the night in tropical climates in Mr. Hare’s world. The ‘Hot Steppers’ are a collection of shoes I would like to have at my disposal when preparing for el baile en la luz de la Luna.  Pulling fine shoes from a Keepall is a little pleasure that ranks next to favourite smells, tastes and tunes.

 

The major emphasis is on the materials. After the decadence of AW09s ‘Purest Form’ Collection, I wanted to create something with just as much presence, but much greater depth of character. The heart of this collection is made of Vachetta. Vachetta is a vegetable tanned leather which means it isn’t produced in such an environmentally damaging way and the leather retains much more of its natural characteristics. Vachetta is the natural leather you find on a Louis Vuitton bag.

 

You are about to enter a two-way relationship if you purchase a Vachetta ‘Hot Stepper’. You must polish them regularly with natural bees wax polish and in return they will age and grow with you. They will form a Patina where the colouring will become distinct and unique. The more love you give them; the more reason they will give you to love them back.

 

I have dedicated this collection to a selection of Dancehall generals who through their sheer brilliance have given us reason to tear up dance floors across the continents.

Above the thrill of music that moves your physical and emotional state, there is only love in my humble opinion. Stand up Johnny Pacheco, Victor Boa, Fela Kuti, Phil Spector, Sir Coxsone, King Tubby, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Barretto, Sir Jablonsky and all the others.

 

 

 

Hot Steppers was shown exclusively at London Fashion Week.

18-19-21-22 Sept 2009, 10am – 6pm @ White Cube Gallery, Masons Yard

23 Sept 2009 @ Noon-2pm BFC MAN Exhibition Somerset House, The Strand.

Mr. Hare was founded in 2008 as one man’s selfish pursuit of great shoes. Mr. Hare is a wholly independent shoe company and is stocked at Dover Street Market, Oki-ni.com, Colette, Surrender, SPR+ and Beams in Tokyo.

 

 

 

Mr Hare, the person, was conceived in the winter of 1969 in South London, by an English Woman and a Jamaican man. Mr. Hare, the baby, was born in July 1970.

 

 

Before Mr. Hare the brand, Mr. Hare, the person, had a long and winding career, which included working at Lynne Franks PR in the late 80s, opening London’s only proper surf shop called Low Pressure in 1992. Being a design consultant for British outdoor company Karrimor. Being a marketing consultant for companies including Nike, Adidas, New Balance, Speedo, Caterpillar, Sebago, Dr. Martens, O’Neill, Reebok, Levi’s and Kangol. Mr. Hare also opened a ground breaking fashion boutique in London called Something, which stocked amongst other things, Balenciaga, Dior, Margiela, Raf Simons, Veronique Branquinho, AF Vandervorst, Bernhard Wilhelm, Martine Sitbon…shall I go on?

 

Mr. Hare, the brand took 360 days to go from idea conception to shopfloor at Dover Street Market.

 

Mr. Hare, the person’s, goal in life is to live in a beach house somewhere hot where I can surf my older days away, before I am too old to surf. Therefore, Mr. Hare, the brand, will make a small number of essential products extremely well, for the people who desire them the most. Mr. Hare, the person, believes that the ethical way to do business is by having more small pockets of great expertise instead of a few large corporations affecting a brain drain for unnecessary greedy financial gain.

 

Mr. Hare, the shoes, are currently designed wherever I choose. They are handmade in Empoli, in Tuscany, Italy. In future they will be made wherever the greatest manufacturer best suited to the task at hand is located. The daily operations of Mr. Hare, the brand, the person, the blog, happen in London.

 

Mr. Hare, the person, has no formal training in shoe design or any other form of design. He just knows what he needs and knows what he likes. He needs food and love and music and fresh air.  He likes MF Doom, cooking, surfing, Marvin Gaye, his 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, dancing, bespoke suits, flip flops, camping, riding mountains, the Wu-Tang Clan especially ODB,  white wine and dark rum, but not together, girls, Spinach and many other things, but these are the ones I have remembered today.

 

Mr. Hare, the brand, is a black shoe company. This means my shoes are created to make the wearer look stylish and completely in control at night. This doesn’t mean they can’t be warn in the day, or come in other colours. It just means that when I designed them I was thinking about having a great time at night, outside, with friends, with great food and drink, and dancing. Lots of dancing.

 

For more information, buy me lunch sometime, or visit

 

Autumn/Winter 2009

 

“Quality, Style and Emotion. For years Mr. Hare has sought these qualities in the pursuit of great men’s shoes, only to be cozened by the inducement of comfort features or outlandish fashion attitude.

 

Geographically and historically, Northampton has given us a foundation in quality and style through very restrained British emotion. More recently Milan and Paris have executed style superfluous to requirements while compromising quality and tapping emotions too few men are truly in touch with.

 

In these times of imminent CHANGE, Mr. Hare will address the Quality, Style and Emotion equation to create men’s shoes with dignity, purpose and elegance. Beautiful shoes born of a black shoe perspective, made from the finest materials, utilizing the skill of craftsmen and the most appropriate constructions, evoking the talk of the evening.

 

Mr. Hare’s man is sartorially, a swan amongst geese, worldly in the modern way and as rural as urban. Equipped with charm and good humour in spite of the times. Mr. Hare’s man is comfortable in himself and displays attitude not on his sleeve, but in the engagement of the audience he has since departed.”

 

 

For more information contact:

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a simple premise. The shoes I idolised in my adolescence. Not the actual shoes but the shoes as I dreamed them. Here, now realised and amplified to 11 because I made them myself.

 

Let me set the scene. It’s 1980. The Conservatives have been in Government for a year and everyone hates them, especially the youth who thought Punk was going to solve everything. My style icons crowd my street corner with their skinny, bleached turn-ups, and red laced oxblood 10 holes and Crombie's. So sharp, so full of hate for a brown boy who can’t stop staring. If I had those loafers and a clean white sock for everyday of the week then surely the hate could subside. To quote from Geno

 

“On a night when flowers didn’t suit my shoes,

After a week of flunking and Bunking school,

The lowest head in the crowd that night,

Just practising steps and keeping out of the fights.” Is how I remember that period.

 

A couple years on and the reality in London are riots, but fashion has gone fantasy. The punks are now pirates. There is swash in their shoes and buckles on their boots. Unplug the Jukebox and do us all a favour!!  I surfed the New waves until 1986 when the underground went over ground. When Buffalo was served up on a Petri dish.   Looking at my Gucci it was about that time.

 

My Adidas, put my shoe game on pause, but they got me through all the best club night doors. Ask Phillip Salon. Inevitably it was a girl who loved Gucci’s that I wanted to love me, that brought me back down to shoe earth. She ran off with Nellee Hooper, but shoes and I have been lovers ever since.

 

Now I realise this is not much of a press release but every line is an honest insight as to how this collection came about. For those of you who weren’t there…

 

Mr. Hare’s AW11 Idolescent collection is a range of Bovver Boots, Loafers, New Wave oxfords, Apache steppers, Trans Atlantic Engineer fantasies, Boots for bowling about in Soho, razor sharp evening shoes and the classics. Made from a selection of pit tanned veggie leathers, exotics, suede’s, high shines and fine Italian calf skins. Mr. Hare has also experimented with more Northern European constructions, utilising such hardware as Rubber and Vibram soles, in order to take these audacious pedal creations into the rain and slush. Mr. Hare was founded in 2008 because he couldn’t find a job or the kinds of shoes he wanted to wear. Five seasons later…