LAUNCH
DESIGNING FOR AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
MENS + WOMENSWEAR
LAUNCH
LAUNCH brought together many of the ideas that had been developing across the RÆBURN world into one of the brand's most complete explorations of Responsible Design, technical innovation and future thinking.
Presented as a unified collection of menswear and womenswear, LAUNCH looked towards space as a way of questioning the future of our own planet. The collection contrasted the terrestrial dystopia of George Lucas's THX 1138 with the optimism and momentum of the early Space Race, taking the wearer on a journey through launch, capsule, extra-vehicular activity and touch down.
LAUNCH SHOW
Materials were drawn from both industrial innovation and existing resources. Fire- and water-resistant Nomex informed space-suit-inspired outerwear; Tyvek® was transformed into lightweight shirting and shorts; while original Airbrake parachutes were RÆMADE into overdyed outerwear, shorts, shirts and panelled skirts. A specially developed woven material created highly resolved lunar imagery without relying on conventional printing, bringing material innovation and graphic storytelling together.
Throughout the collection, functionality was deliberately visible. Oversized webbing, Velcro-fastened compartments, modular pockets and technical closures referenced the practical intelligence of equipment designed for extreme environments.
Graphics became equally important. Lunar landscapes, astronomical symbols and the RÆBURN RÆMADE, RÆDUCED, RÆCYCLED philosophy appeared throughout, while interchangeable alphabet patches allowed garments to be continually personalised and reconfigured.
LAUNCH represented more than a space-inspired collection; It brought material, product, graphics, provocation and storytelling together to ask a bigger question about the future. At a moment when technological optimism continues to sit increasingly alongside environmental uncertainty, RÆBURN used the possibility of leaving Earth to encourage a more fundamental consideration of how we live on it.
FOOTWEAR COLLABORATION
CLARKS × RÆBURN
Our multi-year partnership with Clarks brought together two British brands with a shared respect for craft, functionality and purposeful design.
Drawing on Clarks' deep footwear expertise and RÆBURN's approach to responsible innovation, utility and material exploration, the collaboration developed across multiple seasons for both men and women. Each collection became an opportunity to explore how traditional footwear knowledge could be combined with new materials, constructions and cultural references to create something progressive, functional and distinctly contemporary.
Throughout the partnership, RÆBURN brought the narrative and design language of each seasonal collection into footwear, allowing shoes to become an integral part of the wider RÆBURN world.
One of the most distinctive expressions of this approach came through in our LAUNCH collection.
Drawing references from technical space equipment, familiar footwear typologies were reimagined through exaggerated proportions, performance materials and RÆBURN's characteristic use of webbing and functional detailing. Lightweight constructions were combined with a deliberately futuristic aesthetic, translating the collection's wider exploration of technical innovation into footwear.
The result captured what made the wider partnership so effective: Clarks' knowledge of how to make exceptional footwear combined with RÆBURN's ability to challenge what that footwear could look like, how it could perform and the story it could tell.
Across multiple seasons, the collaboration demonstrated how shared values and complementary expertise could create space for genuine experimentation, connecting British craft with responsible thinking, functionality and a progressive creative point of view.
Christopher Ræburn Founder & Creative Director RÆBURN Follow Christopher Instagram LinkedInWorking with Clarks was a real privilege. As a British designer, there’s something incredibly special about collaborating with a company whose history stretches all the way back to 1825 and which has played such an important role in footwear and British design culture.
What made the partnership particularly strong was the mutual respect for what each of us brought to the table: Clarks with this extraordinary depth of craft and shoemaking knowledge, and RÆBURN with a different perspective around materials, functionality and responsible design.
I’m incredibly proud of what we created together, but equally of the partnership itself. There was a genuine openness to bringing new materials, new references and different ways of thinking into this incredible foundation of knowledge and craft. For me, that’s where collaboration becomes really powerful; when two distinct perspectives come together with enough trust to challenge, experiment and ultimately create something neither could have arrived at independently.
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