The Duckies for Florsheim

First there was Alexander McQueen for Samsonite, then there was Thom Browne for Brooks Brothers. Now the latest edgy designer to team up with a traditional menswear brand is Duckie Brown.

In the fashion industry’s latest odd-couple pairing, century-old shoe company Florsheim, known for its wingtips, has chosen edgy menswear designer Duckie Brown, known for its sequins, to create a line of men’s dress shoes, reports the Wall Street Journal.  Florsheim executives learned of the Duckie Brown team from an item in the New Yorker magazine this past June about a New Jersey high-school senior who asked the designers to make a prom suit for him; they did — and sent along a pair of Florsheim shoes that they had used in a runway show for him to wear with it.

The Duckie Brown label has annual sales of only $1 million and is carried in only about 18 stores world-wide. Mr. Florsheim says the company considered bigger names but decided to go with an “up-and-coming” designer brand “that’s a little less predictable.”

Courtesy of WeAreTheMarket.com