Gerrit Jacobs x UGG

• Beanie Stolper: From UGG boots to spray paint, did you want to challenge the iconic UGG or reimagine it?
  Gerrit Jacobs: I definitely wanted to challenge the UGG. What I love about the boots in particular is that they’ve been dissected, loved, and everything in between. They’ve moved through so many phases of the cultural conversation that they’ve become this very specific object within pop culture. So to me, using the UGG as a surface was a lot about engaging with that cultural context rather than erasing it. Airbrushing as a technique often invites questions about taste,  what’s considered “good” or “bad”, and I enjoy playing in that tension. There’s something very interesting about creating in that in between space.

   

• BS: The edition of twenty five feels personal, almost like pieces for family and friends. What’s the statement in scarcity? What makes something worth limiting?
  GJ: Something that I like about them being hand-painted is that the process itself makes the outcome inherently personal. This run isn’t being sold; it’s just for friends, family, and people who’ve been supporting me. It’s more of a thank you to everyone around me. UGG has been incredibly generous in providing the shoes and letting me send them to people I love. I have recently been speaking a lot about craft and the idea of something being handmade. My thoughts are still developing, but especially over the past year, I’ve noticed a growing demand for my hand painted or hand crafted pieces, especially compared to my more affordable, digitally printed items. I can’t help but wonder if that is happening in relation to the wider cultural context of information and product overload and advances in atomisation. It just appears that something scarce is becoming more special than ever.

BS: Spray paint on UGG boots isn’t the most obvious pairing, what made it make sense to you?
GJ: For me, spraying on anything feels pretty natural, to be honest. That said, suede is definitely a challenging surface, so it took some experimenting to figure out a design that worked both technically and visually. Initially, I was only asked to paint a mural for the store. But once I started exploring the colours and designs for the wall, I figured those ideas could live beautifully on the boots themselves. I felt like extending the mural onto the UGG boots connected the two stories and made the project make sense.

BS: How did you end up on the radar of UGG? Was it a surprise?
GJ: I believe UGG was looking for someone based in Berlin to paint an in-store mural, and they’ve seen the mural I did for a pop-up in Schöneberg last year. That was nice to hear because those murals are usually quite spontaneous. I do them mostly for fun for pop-ups and showrooms, as part of building an atmosphere around the products. I wouldn’t really call it a surprise because this partnership felt like it made a lot of sense.

BS: You’ve built a visual universe out of kitsch and confidence. Was there freedom in applying that to something so universally familiar?
GJ: Yes, for sure! I have noticed that generally, people can dissect and accept something a lot more when it is combined with something familiar, which in this case is the UGG boot. Even within my work and practice, I always like to play with something inherently familiar and then look for ways to subvert and twist it, whether that’s money, funfair motifs, or flags. So being given the boot as a canvas and seeing how it’s been received has been a cool experience for sure.

BS: You’ve worked with other brands, and now UGG, what does collaboration mean to you at this stage of your practice?
GJ: One of the reasons I started working with brands was to be able to collaborate with all sorts of different people. I really think that is something particularly nice about running a fashion brand. Whether it’s photographers, stylists, other designers, VFX people, brands, and in this case UGG, there is something really special about working together and feeding off that spark that only happens when you go out and work with new people. Each of the brands I have worked with are very different, and their reasons for collaborating are also very different, so each time you are confronted with a whole new set of dynamics and challenges that are fun to explore.