Clarks Originals’ new short-film Sunset: A Clarks In Manchester Film is an ode to the British footwear brand’s long-standing affiliation with the UK rave scene of the early nineties.
Billed as “a love letter to the rave” and directed by Glenn Kitson, the two-minute film journeys back to the heady nights of yesteryear to peek through the psychedelic (and often mesmerising) acid house window.
Between the mid-1980s and early 1990s, UK music changed forever. Suddenly rave music was met with a fresh wave of indie bands and bedroom producers and a new, powerful feeling of freedom spread across the country.
Underground raves and super clubs like the Haçienda (the famed nightclub that became a celebrity hotspot during the Madchester years) inspired a worldwide dance movement and all the while it was Clarks often uniforming this revolutionary free-thinking generation.
“I've worn Clarks for years, they're a very north-west thing. For some reason the brand was a real thing around our way,” Kitson told Highsnobiety.
“Back then it was different, people didn't collect trainers or footwear. You just wore what looked good until they fell apart and then went out and bought a new pair.
“When the whole Manchester rave thing was happening I remember seeing some mad-looking Wallabees. A lot of them were knock-off and bought off the market. Back then the crazy colors weren't legit, but that's the sign of a brand being co-opted into the cultural fabric.”
The film itself is “a love letter to raving and going out partying” according to Kitson, who revealed that the campaign’s name derives from Sunset 102, a local Manchester-based radio station he used to listen to growing up.
The film, which drops alongside a handful of accompanying rave-inspired Clarks footwear collections, follows two groups of youths as they head on a night out and is awash with memory-evoking nostalgic references, including the Clarks Wallabee.
For Kitson, who used to travel slightly further afield to rave as opposed to hitting the Haçienda, Sunset: A Clarks In Manchester Film is about more than raving, but instead a celebration of the culture and the feelings behind it.
“I kind of missed out on the Haçienda. By the time I was going raving it wasn't the club it used to be,” he says. “Me and my friends went to all the other clubs that were happening in the north of England in Blackpool, Stoke, places like Wigan and Leeds and Manchester.
“Sunset: A Clarks In Manchester Film is about exactly that: it's a love letter to raving and going out partying and the friendships you make along the way.”
