While he’s often skeptical of the intense, ephemeral gratification of social media, Raul Lopez has an innate sense of how to make his followers lose their minds. In 2017, the Luar designer posted a picture of himself wearing a pretty standard bodega fit—sweatsuit, puffer coat, Yankee fitted, sling bag, sunglasses—with one eye-raising swerve: a pair of brown lace-front boots that extended well above his knees. The frankly medieval footwear, plus the undeniable aura on display, made the post go viral. One particularly memorable reply deemed Lopez “the final boss” of NY.
The boots in that photo were not Timberlands, but rather a runway sample that never made it to market from Hood by Air, the now-defunct cult label that Lopez co-founded with Shayne Oliver in 2006. And yet, a clear reason the outfit works is because they look a bit like the classic Timberland boots rendered through a funhouse mirror. Lopez was lovingly riffing on the New York archetype he identifies as the “sweatsuit dandy.” The kind of guy who takes painstaking effort to make sure he doesn’t scuff his boots, even though they were designed to be used on a chaotic job site. “It’s the equivalent of someone wearing a Saville Row suit with a Church’s shoe,” he said. “It’s kind of a flex to have a fresh pair of wheat nubuck Timbs,” he said.
Unsurprisingly, then, when Lopez got the opportunity to work with Timberland to produce a boot for Industry star Myha’la to wear at this year’s Met Gala, themed around the concept of the Black dandy, there was little question he would leap at the chance. “I was so geeked,” he said, excited for the challenge to bring the iconic street boot to fashion’s biggest red carpet event.