The most popular ugly shoe - Clarks Wallabee

the clark wallaby might be the

most

influential

shoe

you didn't know was influential, at least i didn't before we started researching for this video so let's cut them up and see what's inside and test the materials. to see if they're really worth the money and to see if it's worth investing in a couple of these now that they're back and

popular

again to see if they're really worth it today's video is brought to you by nordvpn and if you don't know what is nordvpn it is a vpn and internet security service and they have over 5500 different servers in 59 different countries so why does that matter? nordvpn allows you to change the different country you are in in quotes. so you can get access to a ton of movies, tv shows, entertainment and even video games that aren't available to you based on where you live and you can use that same location change service for discounts and on media and entertainment that are only available in certain countries and if you're like me you probably stream too much content more than you probably should but the great thing about nordvpn is that it encrypts all your data so streaming services can no longer throttle your bandwidth and make you It's impossible to stream your favorite trashy tv, but apart from watching the content you want the way you want, nordvpn is also a very important tool for cyber threats and online dangers because nordvpn hides your real location from everyone and encrypts all your data so that people can't track you in the virtual world and in real life and it protects all your information on the internet and nordvpn will scan every file you download for malware and also scans the urls you are going to before it reaches them and blocks them so you can't even get into those sketchy websites that are trying to steal your information so check out nordvpn via the link in my description or go to nordvpn.com roseanville and use the code roseanville to get your exclusive nordvpn offer and it's risk free and has a 30 day money back guarantee so you can try it for 30 days and if you hate it your money back but I have a feeling you'll like the extra internet protection as well which thanks again to nordvpn for this

shoe

has a much longer history than i ever imagined and it all started in 1821 when cyrus clark started processing hides with wool tanning and stapling, two of those words i didn't know what they meant until this point and then in In 1828, they began to reverse the sheepskin rugs and sold them a slipper so they would take the fuzzy part and turn it inside out and make slippers out of it and then in 1833 Cyrus and James began trading c and j clark as an official company to start selling their products. but they al

most

went bankrupt in the 1860s so it was a rocky start for Clarks and then 40 years after WWII in the 1950s Nathan Clark developed a desert boot after his tour in World War II and that's really what Clarks is more of. known for their desert boots then also in the 50s Nathan Clark developed the crepe soul that Clarks is known for today and pretty much invented the casual shoe market and then 10 years after the development of soul Clarks came out with the wallaby in 1967 and it was an adapted model of the loafers made in Germany called grasshoppers and they had some pretty cool marketing around these shoes that leaned into how

ugly

they were and then in the '60s and '70s, the kangaroos they became synonymous with rude kid culture and then hit Europe's acid house movement in the late '80s and early '90s because you couldn't wear sneakers in the club at the time, so they were a good barefoot shoes that were comfortable to wear and then in the mid 90's this was british pop.

Staple Shoe and Verve album cover have a couple of these, then through the rest of the 90s these became very influential through the 90s rap scene, worn by some pretty big names like the notorious big slick rick wu-tang clan mf doom and many others. people and then when the 2000s came around they stayed in

popular

culture and they weren't that popular but they've never really stopped selling them and they've had a few flashes on their radar but now they're back again and now they're becoming very popular, there's a lot of hype around it, a lot of the streetwear guys are wearing it, they are, they're making some cool calls with Supreme, Drake and Carhart Kiff so it seems like they're on the rise again and that's the good thing from doing the quick shoe stories and now I have a whole new appreciation for this shoe and the history and cultural significance of the shoe that I had no idea before doing this so now let's look at the actual quality of this shoe starting with the leather first so it's a pretty decent leather it's tanned by cf stead in england and they're world famous for making basically the highest suede leather you can get and it's a chrome tan leather which is surprisingly thick it's 2.2 millimeters thick it's a lot thicker than most sneakers and it's in that boot thickness range so it's going to be a nice durable leather and I like that they finished the meat on the inside it's a nice soft texture on the interior but where is this in the cross section of the leather from the grain to the really loose fibers?

It's very hard to tell because you can't really see that grain, but I think I just see a little sliver of that top which is called the grain which stands for the smooth part of the leather right at the bottom of the cross section, so I think what they do is they hide, they sand the top grain down to get it really even and give it a bit of a shaggy nap and then they put a coat of wax over the top to get it nice and flat, then they flip it over the fuzzy bottom which is the suede to the outside and that's where you see this really nice even textured suede on the outside so technically this would be raw waxed nubuck and I'm working on a grid system for the suede and i like fuzzy hides so maybe next time we do a suede hide I'll finish it off but overall it's a pretty good hide especially if you have just a little sliver of the grain in there and it's thick enough to which, even if it's not, is much better suede than what you see on most sneakers and other shoes that have small panels of suede next to the sole this is another thing Clarks is very well known for because they are natural crepe rubber soles and this is about as natural a rubber sole as you can get it's much less processed and you can see it's a little chunky and it's really very soft and spongy and people love this type of sole exterior because it is very comfortable, it has some negative aspects, people drop big chunks and once you use this floor, they are really slippery and obviously look very dirty. very fast which annoys some people but overall a crepe rubber outsole is a really good outsole and maybe the biggest potential downside to this outsole isn't even the compound or how it's constructed it's more than it's really small you know if you look down the side of this the outsole goes under the upper so if you have really wide feet your little finger could push this upper out and you could be standing on the edge of the outsole which I guess would be very uncomfortable and then if you move to the inside of the shoe there's not much on the inside all there is is a sock liner that feels like it has foam under it and has a dedicated counter cover on the inside which is the biggest spell point with any shoe y'all have ever seen is where you just wear down the inside of your shoe on the heel because your heel slips wears down that fabric and they've reinforced it with a nice thick suede leather inside so chances are you'll never go. wearing that which brings us to the construction because this construction is quite unique especially compared to all the different makto boots and the other shoes that we have partly have simulated toes because this is a true moccasin construction where this side piece wraps around all the way under with no problem and it comes back up this other side and then it's stitched to this toe cap here and people really like this style of construction because it's more durable because it doesn't have the seam of a wrestling stitch and no no it has the top that is tucked under that is just glued or sometimes sewn it is just one seamless piece there are no seams for it to fall down anywhere and because there are no seams there are no high stitches or seams you'll be standing on all day and they can be very easy to soles too because all you have to do is remove the sole and glue a new one on, there are no seams to undo and all the seams on the shoe that hold it together are right here at the tip. it's essentially the only seam that matters for this whole shoe and it's made of two pieces which is kind of crazy and I really like the way they finish off the mock toe because we've seen basically two different types of seams mokto a fake makto where the leather is shirred and then a seam is sewn around it to look like a fake toe and then we've seen where it's a two piece makto where they come to a point and the bottoms come together and are sewn together together give you that ridge from the makto but the kangaroos go a step further where this upper piece on the instep not only sews to the bottom piece but it wraps around the upper hiding that seam where those two pieces meet and also allows you to have three layers of leather that you're stitching on, so it gives it a cleaner look, it gives it a little bit more durability and maybe a little bit more waterproof, but what really strikes me is that I'm almost 95 sure this is hand-stitched here because it's a little uneven, it's a little rough, the stitches are very wide, it uses a very thick sewing thread, but most importantly, you can see where it's tied and if one of these stitches skips it's not joined like the thread from a sewing machine where the top thread and bottom thread wrap around each other this sews much more like a satellite zone the same way we sew our wallets shameless plug where you have two needles on one thread and you are knitting the thread in and out so if you skip a stitch it doesn't all come undone like when you skip a stitch on your sleeve it's just a much more durable technique for sewing leather together and that's why we use it on the wallets and it's which is why I was really surprised that they did this on this shoe because it's a very labor intensive, handmade touch to the shoe so the shoe is already significantly more impressive and has a much cooler story than I expected even before we started making this video, but we haven't seen what's inside.

Yeah, there could be some catastrophic failures or some problems or maybe some things that aren't what they seem, so now we're going to cut them in half to see. if we can find out the truth about these clark wallabies then ok we cut them in half and these are really easy to cut but they completely clog up the band saw the band cakes with melted rubber and then that melted rubber it gets stuck in the wheels and you end up having to clean the bandsaw every time we cut one of these crepe rubber soles but whatever let's see what's inside so we figured there's a foam wedge inside and I think most of the reason they put that in there is for two reasons to keep the cost down a bit and to make these shoes not as heavy as they would be if you had another layer of heavy rubber on the inside and you can also see that there's a reinforced cardboard almost like a stem on the inside and I think that's what it's for to add a little bit of stability to the shoe so that this rubber and foam press to compress equally and almost act like it's a bit of a stem because of how soft and pliable they are and my only fear with this is that it would slowly separate over time and see how as it flexes they rub against each other which could wear them out prematurely or could break, ideally you just have full leather underneath like a true loafer but it makes sense that it's there and the cellulose counters and then other than that there's not much else to the shoe the only thing I got wrong was the upper doesn't tuck under the whole shoe it stops right where the sock liner starts and then tucks under and sticks in the heel so the clark wallabys are worth the money at 160 i think they are you know there are some improvements They could be done, but they have really good materials, pretty solid construction, and have some handcrafted touches that I wouldn't have expected on a $160 shoe, so I think they're worth it.

Would I buy a pair now what? I know the history of the shoe and how deep it really is and how many different people wore these shoes and how many different subgenres from different artist artists and different groups ofpeople adopted them and made them their own and made them popular in their own way and the fact that they're half loafers and have pretty decent materials and they're very comfortable I think I'll buy a pair and I like the way they look I like the way they people wear them nowadays with a bit of the dad jean look.

I'm going to buy a pair so I have a new appreciation for the shoe that I have. I just discarded it before making this video because this video was so interesting. I had no idea how deep the history of the shoe is and how impactful it has been on culture and how many different cultures it has been a part of. It's really cool, so thank you. for watching and letting me know what your experiences are on this shoe i missed something and thank you so much for your support it's what allows us to do these really deep dives into these shoes and what allows us to separate two different shoes basically every single week so you know what you're spending your hard earned money on, it's so much fun and thank you so much for everything.