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Past, Present & Preservation: Celebrating the launch of KEEN’s Jasper Zionic with the modernist & Sneaker Pharm*

At Proper, we’re always up to something, although it might not appear that way. Believe it or not, we aren’t just sat in an office waxing lyrical about big jackets all day, sometimes we give our heads a wobble and think of what ways we can pull all aspects of things we’re passionate about together – clothes, community and culture. Recently, we think we did a pretty good job of hosting an event that managed to balance all three of those criteria in equal proportion.

The event in question was an activation for KEEN’s latest model, the Jasper Zionic, you’ve probably heard us banging on about it before no doubt. But that’s for good reason, the shoe perfectly blends lifestyle with the outdoors, largely due to it being a combination of two models – the Jasper and the Zionic.

Inspired by KEEN’s creative process of amalgamating two different kinds of shoes, we set about drafting ideas for an event that highlighted change and preservation, just as KEEN had changed attributes from each trainer but also preserved the best ones.

Like many things at Proper, we sort of worked backwards from a name, which turned out to be – Past, Present and Preservation, good isn’t it? Other than the name we hadn’t figured out that much yet, but one thing we did know for certain was that we wanted the event to be held in Manchester and incorporate local businesses. It is our birthplace, after all – got to look after those who’ve always been there for you, don’t you? All too often it seems that the North is overlooked when people choose spaces to host events, but perhaps somewhat out of spite, we decided it wasn’t going to be this time.

To cover the Past and Present part of our catchy name we decided that an urban hike around Manchester would be an ideal way to do this, and fortunately for us, the ideal tour guide was only based 1000 yards away. the modernist is a local business and magazine, and as the name suggests, it has a fixation for all things modernist – architecture, homeware, artwork and prints. After a quick chat with Lead Editor Eddy Rhead, he agreed to give us a guided tour around all the most interesting architecture in Manchester, providing information on the origins, original purpose, how its changed, and all the interesting details about the buildings. The whole thing was beginning to sound like a fun school trip.

The only remaining piece of our catchy name to fulfil was the Preservation part. For this, we decided that after doing an urban hike around Manchester, our KEENs would be pretty dirty, and therefore a shoe cleaning and preservation workshop would fit perfectly. Once again, we didn’t have to look far for a space for this, turns out it was only another 1000 yards away. Sneaker Pharm* is a premium shoe care boutique run by Vinnie, a true enthusiast in caring for products and making sure their lifespan is as long as possible, truly a perfect fit for the messaging we were trying to achieve.

The only thing (we wish) that was left to do was to invite a likely bunch of people – the kind that would appreciate the tone of the event and the messaging would resonate with. Thanks to living in the age of the internet, we didn’t have to rely on carrier pigeons to send these invites, and we were chuffed to see they were well received.

It felt a bit like Christmas the day before the event, but in a way that you were solely responsible for the planning of everyone in the world’s Christmas. Excited, but a bit terrified. Anyway, the day rolled around, and what a day it was – saturated with glorious sunshine, pretty sure it was the only day in Manchester that week that didn’t rain. Everyone was set to meet at the modernist, and fortunately, everyone did.

After strapping some KEENs to our feet we marched out of the modernist and began the fun school trip, with Eddie being our teacher. We set off on our tour and passed through all different areas of the city to observe all different kinds of brutalist and of course, modernist, architecture. Everyone involved said they learnt loads – Eddy was a fantastic host, and we doubt you could find anyone more qualified for the job.

After having some quick liquid and baked good refreshments at The Green Lab, we were ready to head into Sneaker Pharm*. Although one issue quickly became apparent, everyone’s shoes were spotless, we’d somehow picked the driest day in the whole of September to host the event. Fortunately, our in-house graphic designer and general tech handyman, Tom, volunteered his slightly more abused KEENs to be operated on by Vinnie. Everyone watched intently as he explained in captivating detail how you should treat the materials on your shoes as you’d treat your own skin, his main message was:

‘If you wouldn’t put a product on your skin, why would you put it on your shoes?’

There was a sort of unanimous agreement between us all that this was a pretty simple, but obvious concept. A few heads almost certainly went down in shame when he shunned those who use baking soda to clean their suede. After Vinnie was done cleaning Tom’s shoes they looked brand new, and this was the perfect segway for Vinnie to explain the importance of looking after our belongings, especially since we’re more than ever living in a zeitgeist of fast fashion. Simple cleaning of footwear could extend its lifespan by many years, if everyone did this a bit more often, inevitably, fewer shoes would get produced, ultimately reducing the devastating impact that the production of plastics and many fabrics has on our planet. Some of Vinnies closing words were:

‘You wouldn’t go anywhere without your shoes, they’re a travel companion, if you look after them, they’ll look after you.’

After the workshop, a fairly lengthy Q&A session was held between Vinnie, a KEEN representative called Graeme, and the rest of the group about the future of footwear and how best we can consume products in a less harmful way. We found that KEEN devote a large proportion of their resources into figuring out how they can produce shoes in the least harmful to the environment way possible. Every boot shoe and sandal they make are PFAs free, and they try to use as little glue as possible when bonding the sole to the upper. Vinnie seemed to be pretty impressed with KEEN’s attitude to production, and if he’s impressed, so are we.

Before we could all give Vinnie & Graeme the standing ovation they deserved for their insight into the footwear industry, a large shipment of cardboard boxes with MARG, VEG and PEP written on them burst through the door. They were full of pizza from local business Smash And Dash. Vinnie also revealed that his sinks were primed with ice-cold beer supplied by another local business, Manchester Union Brewery, this signified that the party was very much underway. Plenty of familiar and friendly faces came through Sneaker Pharm*’s doors that night, the doughy cheesy delicacies were eaten, plenty of cans of alcoholic carbonated beverages were drunk, and many good conversations were had. The only question we had at the end of it all was, why don’t we do this more?’

The whole day was the perfect combination of clothes, community and culture that brought together brands, businesses and people we care about. We’d like to thank everyone involved, and not to brag or anything but we’ve had lots of lovely comments saying that people had a nice time, so that must mean we did something right?

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