5950 X 10061 = ?

Jeff Staple posted some images of a new brand-collaboration limited-edition product the other day. New collaborations are a dime a dozen, but this one interested me because of the collaborators: New Era, and Timberland. Usually, one big mainstream brand collaborates with a brand-underground-type brand (see this old column on an Alife/Levi’s project, or this one about New Era collaborating with Gabriel Urist, under the auspices of Jeff Staple, in fact), swapping financial resources for downtown cachet.

But here we have two mainstream brands collaborating with each other. Granted, both brands have unusual relationships with the hipster (or trend-setting, or whatever, you know what I mean) consumer. Each has “authentic” “street” “credibilty” etc. etc. But still, it’s pretty unusual for something like this to happen, and I’m not quite sure what to make of it.

What’s next, an Adidas X Nike sneaker?